Just a man and his will to survive..

Our love-hate relationship with oil and gas

2010-05-02T07:28:00.005Z

It seems like we can't quite let go of our dependence on petroleum.

The story is..

In 2003, some oil-explorers from Brunei were going into Block J and K (pink and blue) and found Petronas people there. So exploration from both sides were stopped. Brunei claims an exclusive economic zone stretching 200 nautical miles. See this googlemap I made using the coordinates from wiki. In March 2009, letters of exchange were signed and both sides agreed to the final delimitation of the maritime boundaries.

This is another example of politics going haywire. The issue is 1 year old!

Mahathir criticised Abdullah on his blog for selling out Malaysia. He quoted an estimate of 1 billion barrels of oil reserves in these two blocks. This caught the attention of the press and now even wiki has a very up-to-date article on this issue!

Putting the politics aside, the estimated 1 billion barrel worth of reserves is equivalent to about 15 more years of drilling made available for Brunei.

This is good and bad. If it turns out that we can actually reap benefits from these two blocks, then it's another 15 years of revenue pumping out of the ground. The downside is that it'll most probably delay our efforts to move away from this economically and environmentally unsustainable form of income - which is kinda sad.

This is another a very concrete evidence for energy security and why we should be working our ass off looking at alternative sources. First we are now planning to buy electricity from Malaysia, then we are at the mercy of Malaysia's 'generosity'. Perhaps we should take a sip from Singapore's cup of insecurity and learn to be on our toes a little more.. It's about time we equip ourselves better.

Electric cars

2010-04-16T20:03:00.002Z

This is cool... thought i'd share.

Why Brunei did NOT save 231 MW during Earth Hour

2010-03-29T14:48:00.008Z

(Source: Brunei Times)

So we all know that Brunei has officially participated in the Earth Hour initiative on the 27th March 2010, asking people to turn off unnecessary lightings from 8.30 to 9.30pm.

The next day, while I was reading the news, it made headlines, quoting a 231 MW 'savings'. When i first read it, i was shocked. To have a better feel of the numbers, Brunei has a total installed capacity of about 800 MW; Brunei is looking into buying 400 MW electricity from Malaysia (wow!). and to save 231 MW for a period of on hour means Brunei managed to slashed its power consumption by more than 25% in that hour. In fact, at night, as you can see from the graph, the power required is only about 480 MW. To cut 231 MW means nearly half of the nation's requirement on electricity was shut down.

Did this happen? No.

Let me try to explain this. We first have to turn to secondary school physics lessons to understand the difference between energy and power.

Electricity is a form of energy and the Joule (J) is the normal unit for energy. Power, on the other hand, is the rate of energy used, i.e. the amount of energy used per unit time, expressed as J/s, or the Watt (W).

For e.g., if your kettle is labelled 1.5 kW, and you turn it on for 6 minutes, the energy used is 1500W x (6 x 60)s = 540 000 J. [Energy = Power x Time]

Now for convenience, we can also express it this way. 1.5 kW x 0.1 h = 0.15kWh. It is still power multiplied by time, just that the unit for energy is now kWh. Your electricity bill will be charged by the amount of kWh you use.

Let me stress once again, that kWh is a unit for energy while kW is a unit for power. Power is energy/time; Energy = Power x time.

Now that we're clear, let's have a closer look at the reporting of the Earth Hour. (http://www.bt.com.bn/en/news-national/2010/03/29/brunei-saves-231mw-during-earth-hour)

(Source: Brunei Times & Department of Electrical Services)

It seems as if people have calculated the 'savings' in energy based on the difference in electrical consumption of the 27th March to the 26th March. This assumes the electricity consumption patterns is the same for both days - and that if Earth Hour did not happen, the electricity consumption would be the same.

There are a few things to tackle here:

1) First of all, you can't save 231 MW of energy. MW is not a unit of energy. In fact, it is quite clear that the difference in power consumption between the two days only ranges about 30-40 MW depending on which measurement you look at.

Another number quoted was that over that hour, we saved 38.5 MWh of energy - this is consistent with the units used and I think this number came from the Department of Electrical Services. I was wondering what mathematical gymnastics the reporters did to get 231 and stumbled across this: If we multiply 38.5 by 6 measurements, we get 231. (!!!) does it mean anything? Not really. If we did this, it's the amount of energy you would save if you do earth hour 6 times, and the units are MWh. (not MW)

You can't say you save 231 MW of energy. It's like saying I drove across 80 km/h of distance.

okay that's bad reporting out of the way - let's look at more meaty stuff.

2) 38.5 MWh saved over that hour. How did they arrive at this number. With the data given on the newspaper, I did a calculation based on the difference in the blue and red curves and integrated this to get energy. (See method 1 in the table). I got a value of 38.2 MWh, which is reassuring.

For those not familiar with integration, it is basically the summation of the 'area under the curve'. To get energy, the function of power is integrated over time. think of it as power x time = energy.

Now we have to argue whether the assumption that the energy usage for the 26th is the same for the 27th.

Earth Hour started at 8.30pm. What was interesting to me is that even by 8.00pm, there is already a difference in power level of about 20 MW between the two days. (see first 3 points of the red and blue) I then proceeded to take the average difference between the three points, and moved the blue curve down, creating the green curve.

This assumes the same trend, only with a difference determined by the first three points. What i'm saying is that if Earth Hour did not happen, the green line is what I would expect to see. (This is only a first approximation using the data available - you can argue that energy patterns for Saturday and Friday are different, but then you would have to get information for previous Saturdays to compare)

So with this assumption in hand, the difference between the green and red curves, integrated to get a number in energy, gave a savings of 13.1 MWh within that hour.

3) Interpretations. This is where things get a bit waffly. Borneo Bulletin says we made a 'big drop' during Earth Hour. How big is big?

Again, by looking at the graph, the power hovers around 450 MW at this time of the day. so in 1 hour, the total consumption is about 450 MWh.

In Section 2, I highlighted that depending on what assumptions you use, you end up with a different number.

38.5 MWh savings during that hour is quite good, about 9 % savings. What i'm saying is that even before earth hour, there is already a 4-5% 'savings'.

If you take the estimate of 13.1 MWh, we made about a 3% difference during that hour. So yes, some difference was made from all that effort, just that we have to be realistic as to how much difference we made.

I think the largest contribution of Earth Hour is still in bringing awareness to the people. But this can be a problem if people are celebrating and cheering and following blindly without knowing what they are really up for. The green movement can be too easily politicised, commercialised and abused. Please be careful.

** Thanks to Chee Hui for the discussion and checking through the above concepts **

Brunei Postgraduate Symposium - An eye opener

2010-03-22T10:36:00.003Z

I attended the Brunei Postgraduate Symposium yesterday. It's something that I really wanted to attend last year, but unfortunately I was back in Brunei. It's good to finally have to chance to see what Bruneians are doing on a postgraduate research level. It was a long day and a very tiring one too. Towards the end of the day, my brain was so saturated with all sorts of ideas and opinions that it felt slightly fried!

There's always an air of 'oh i wonder what question is appropriate to ask' among Bruneians. We are aware that there is some limit to our 'rights' to ask and voice our opinions. The question then becomes what limit actually is - and everyone has different standards. Some would just be contented with what we have now and don't even bother questioning; some move slightly beyond this and question how the government functions; others raise the bar by challenging the current system. My opinion is that this is in fact a dynamic one, it's not something that has been set in stone, and it will change and move with time as the ideology of the society changes.

This has been what I was wondering before the symposium - considering that it is an academic conference where one is meant to think and question critically and that it is a congregation of Bruneian scholars from all over the world, one would think that this 'limit' should be pretty high (in fact, it did turn out quite high). However, there is still a certain constraint, especially with officers and high ranking civil servants present.

What I observed through the day was a testing of this limit - bit by bit as we progressed through the day. It became a matter of making people comfortable with asking questions they've had for a long time. As more people test the limit and come out productive, more people would follow the footsteps and continue the progress with greater confidence. It's obvious through the day that Bruneians do observe, do have opinions and do care about the country's future. The problem is that we're not quite sure where and how to raise these points - and sometimes slightly paranoid that we'll get struck by lightning if we ask too much. But Brunei being Brunei, I think it is comforting that with this, change will come, slowly but at least appropriately. I think that's where the beauty is.

A few days before the symposium, I was re-reading the book on 'Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air' by David McKay. It's an awesome book that places huge emphasis on using appropriate numbers as opposed to fancy adjectives to describe green policies. It was a pleasure to read and it made me realise how difficult it is to put 'green announcements' made on the press into a proper context. The book does it nicely - and stressed the importance that policy makers be aware of what certain numbers mean. For e.g. when the solar power plant in Brunei claims to produce 1.2 MW, save 960 tonnes CO2 a year and wrongly reported 1.344 kWh per year, do these numbers mean anything? Without knowing the significance, how can proper policies be implemented?

With that a very bold brainwave came, I can't do anything now but there are people who can - so why not give this book to Mr. BR who was one of the keynote speakers. To do something like this is slightly beyond my comfort zone but i thought I should give it a try. Firstly the book is free online - but it's so good I just had to buy it. Secondly, I would buy it for everyone if i had the means to. But I'm only a student and with the limitations on resources, one had to pick one person who has the potential to inform and educate the population and in my scope of understanding it just had to be him.

Overall, the day was interesting. I would appreciate it more if i had more energy to talk to more people but with the lack of sleep the night before (was sleeping in a concert hall of snoring guys) and my brain saturated with the information presented, I was in a slight daze through the day. Generally I think more time needs to be allocated for more discussion to happen. Good questions were raised and good answers were given - but there wasn't too much of a dialogue/discussion going on which I think can be a pity.

Oh lastly, I must thanks the Ministry of Development for giving out the Report on Brunei Darussalam by the Oxford Business Group.

Brunei Rice Self-Sufficiency

2010-03-16T08:18:00.010Z

*credit goes to Justin for pointing out a huge mistake in the conversion of ha to km2* (27th March 2010)

I've always wondered whether it was a right move for the Brunei government to jump into this self-suffiency for rice thing. It always seemed as if the authorities never thought of it, was then prompted by His Majesty and jumped straight into the matter. I'm seeing headlines everywhere with land allocated to padi planting. I've debated this the issue of land use with a number of people and I'm a bit slow, but it just hit me this morning that I can estimate how much land is required to feed Brunei!

The figure above shows my estimations based on numbers from different sources. The green squares show the different land areas (plotted to scale with the Brunei map in the background) required for different yield scenarios.

It seems like with a low yield, we would require about 10% of our land area (60 000 ha). The lowest yield is not too far from that of Wasan. As you can see, if we're stuck to a low yield, the implications is that to feed out population of 300 000-400 000 people, we require about 10% of the total land area of Brunei. The current planned land allocation is hovering about 4000-5000 ha. This of course assumes a higher yield, possibly an over optimistic one too. The figure shows that even with a high yield of 4 tonnes/ha yr, we require about 7500 ha to provide a 100% self-sufficiency.

It now becomes obvious that for this plan to work, a lot of effort has to go into improving the yield of the padi crops. There is an exponential increase in land requirement with the decrease in yield. Brunei has committed itself a large proportion of its land to the Heart of Borneo Project. A recent talk by Tuan Haji Yunos revealed that we actually only have 5% of the land area unconstrained. A low yield, requiring 10% of the land area, will definitely not be feasible. Even an optimistically high yield would still require about 1-2% of the land area, which is a more reasonable number but still not insignificant.

Another point worth thinking about is that even if we can feed ourselves in 5 years time, will the land be sustainable to feed the population let's say.. in 25 years time when the population grows to half a million, a million?

So what does this leave us with? We're in what i would say a 'gray zone'. It is not exactly impossible, but challenging. It is not exactly very wise too. This area is definitely up for debate. I just hope the authorities know what they are doing now..

[Again, if you manage to work through the calculations/estimations and find any mistakes, please let me know.]

My last lecture

2010-03-11T14:01:00.002Z

I really should be heading off to department to get a computational project done, but I have just written two sections of my report and suddenly have the inspiration to write something here. It felt slightly surreal before I went to bed last night that my undergraduate education is only lacking a large number of daunting tripos papers and a few reports before it is over.

I have also just realised that this blog has been largely neglected over the past year, largely due to the slight change in lifestyle and direction of thought vocalization (=P) over the past year.

It was a real pleasure to have my last undergraduate lecture delivered by Dr John Dennis, someone I hold a lot of respect for after coming to better acquaintances this year. Furthermore, he was lecturing on the topic of transport biofuels from algae, a topic that I have been reading with great fervour over the past few days and one that I have led me to spend a significant number of afternoons and early mornings dabbing around in green biomass and highly toxic chemicals. At the end of the lecture, I had one realisation, that I felt capable to questioning what he has presented on the slides. I had the ability to see how his presentation fits into the context of my knowledge and how my findings fit into his. I found this experience interesting and after giving it some thought and discussion over lunch with a friend, I came to the conclusion that before knowing a topic to a certain depth, one can not appreciate how beautiful things are, or how big a can of worms one will find. That sums up what learning is to me - and why learning is enjoyable.

There is a certain 'last year syndrome' going around the place these days. We were lamenting over how much we've 'grown' during the Chemical Engineering Annual Dinner, how we now tackle problems by asking ourselves how we should do it rather than 'oh no, what are supposed to do'. And that the speech by the Shell dude was nothing more than a corporate stunt on sustainability and nonsense.

What i've come to realise lately is that 4 years ago, I didn't have that much of an interest in newspaper articles and what is going on in the world. The world meant 'outside Brunei' and I've always wanted to see it (not in as a tourist) but didn't quite know what that meant either.

There were times this year where I felt like I'm having an explosion of ideas - in a good way. With jc feeding me with interesting stuff she's learning over at the other Cambridge, myself crawling through issues presented in the newspapers, listening to inspiring online talks such as www.ted.com, reading books obtained from trying to finish my book tokens and let's not forget the usual banter and 'discussion' that goes on during gatherings with friends. Sometimes, I feel that it's not a matter of how much information you're getting, but also how receptive you are to such stimuli. The age-old joke is of course the more you know, the more you realise how much more you don't know/want to know. I am pretty sure such things built up over the years, but I think it has been particularly pronounced this year, maybe intensified by the 'last year syndrome' in certain ways.

When in Cambridge, where stress level can only peak to the climax from now onwards, I think it helps to take a step back and realise how much a joy it is to be studying, learning, acquiring and processing knowledge. (lol, i can't help but feel that this feels like plagiarism [inside joke]) Wish me all the best for the next 2+ months - the final stretch of this leg of life.

Just something to share, I found came across this poem by George Moriarty that was recited by John Wooden. It's title is kinda sentimental to this context and there are particular lines that I think are really meaningful. =) Till next time then.

On the road ahead or the road behind

Sometimes I think the fates must grin as we denounce them and insist,

The only reason we can’t win is the fates themselves have missed.

Yet, there lives on the ancient claim – we win or lose within ourselves,

The shining trophies on our shelves can never win tomorrow’s game.

So you and I know deeper down there is a chance to win the crown,

But when we fail to give our best, we simply haven’t met the test

Of giving all and saving none until the game is really won.

Of showing what is meant by grit, of fighting on when others quit,

Of playing through not letting up, it’s bearing down that wins the cup.

Of taking it and taking more until we gain the winning score,

Of dreaming there’s a goal ahead, of hoping when our dreams are dead,

Of praying when our hopes have fled.

Yet, losing, not afraid to fall,

If bravely we have given all, for who can ask more of a man than giving all, it seems to me, is not so far from – Victory.

And so the fates are seldom wrong, no matter how they twist and wind,

It’s you and I who make our fates, we open up or close the gates,

On the Road Ahead or the Road Behind.

George Moriarty

My (wacky) response to the new Toyota Prius in Brunei

2010-01-18T23:23:00.005Z

A lot of hype has been made on the new Hybrid Toyota Prius car in Brunei, and keen into this whole 'green' debate, I was wondering is it actually worth getting a Prius in Brunei. There has always been a view that the low petrol price would actually 'hinder' such environmentally friendly technology with the assumption that green technology are more expensive, either in terms of capital cost or operating cost. So I thought I'd give it some thought..

Please read on if you're interested in numbers and estimations, cos that's what I'm going to do..

also, Please note that this is all just my estimates, I'm plucking numbers from the internet, from wikipedia and random google searches and coming up with a 'ballpark' figure so that I can have an idea, more for my entertainment than anything else. You are, of course, more than welcomed, to join me in my amusement.

The first question of course is what is the fuel efficiency of the Toyota Prius, so I looked up wiki and decided to use an estimate of 3.7L/100km - which is pretty good. Normal cars are about 9-10L/100km. (based on summer experiences of driving up and down the coast of Brunei)

My question then became, if that was the amount of fuel consumed, how much electricity is used for the same distance. I couldn't find any good answers around, so I estimated. From the specs, the total power of the car was a combination of battery (~27kW) and the engine (~60kW).

I assumed that the energy efficiency of battery and fuel is the same, took the energy density of petrol as 34.6 MJ/L and scaled the contribution proportionally. This gave me 128MJ/100km for the petrol contribution and 57.6 /100km from electricity. Electricity consumption was converted to 16 kWh/100km.

The cost of petrol in Brunei is $0.53/L and electricity is about $0.06/kWh (for residential if i'm not mistaken).

So the cost for 100km is estimated to be (0.53 x 3.7) + (0.06 x 16) = $ 2.9/100km

Compare this to a normal car, which gives 0.53 x 9 = $4.77/100km

So the good news is that you save about $1.8 for every 100km you travel. Imagine travelling up and down Bandar to Seria (approx 100km) everyday, 20 days a month, 12 months a year.

You would travel 2 x 100 x 20 x 12 = 48 000km/yr

This brings us to a total saving of $864.

Obviously the savings depend on the cost of petrol, if price of petrol goes up, this savings will become more and more significant. Some one do the calculation taking Singapore's petrol price of hmm.. $2.5-3.0 (?)

but.. there's always a but,

The cost of the car is $58 400. A normal car would cost about $20 000.

Taking simple 'return of investment' approach, dividing the difference of cost with the savings per year, what we end up is a 44 year 'return of investment' period.

It means to get your money's worth of savings, you need to drive that car for 44 years up and down the coast of Brunei nearly everyday. I'd say it'll be a pretty good car if it lasts 44 years running up and down.

Of course buying the car is to 'save' the environment. My view is that to 'save' the environment, either the government has to subsidise such cars to make them more affordable or maybe implement some other policies which might tweak the picture I have painted above.

(If you find any mistakes in the calculations, please let me know. Thanks)

Brunei and the Environment

2009-12-20T12:59:00.009Z

On a snowy yet sunny Sunday morning, I was happily sipping my Earl Grey Tea and enjoying the snow covered scenery outside my window while on my way to perform my routine early morning update of the Brunei news. Having been well entertained by the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit over the past week, I was up for another shock when I read what was on the frontpage of Sunday Borneo Bulletin (20/12/2009).

If you're interested, http://www.borneobulletin.com.bn/sunday/news/dec20h1.htm

Let me first start of by commenting on Dato’s comment that ‘any number per capita can get a bit funny’. Surely this is a significant demographic measure of the country. In fact, to some extent, it gives a better picture of how a country is doing. To put things in context, Brunei currently produces about 170 000 bbl/day of crude oil. Is this a lot? Well, Singapore, without any primary resources whatsoever, refines at least 500 000 bbl/day of crude oil. We do not see Singaporeans having free medical care, education, etc. If it weren’t for our small population, allowing a high GDP per capita, surely we would not be able to enjoy the privileges have today.

Acknowledging that we are fortunate to have a high GDP per capita, surely one would have to agree that the ‘per capita’ numbers are in fact not that ‘funny’. It means that we cannot ignore and even dismiss the fact that we, as an entire population, are the highest polluter of CO₂ per capita in the region. I appreciate that the Deputy Minister was able to outline some of the sources of the CO₂ in the country (oil production etc). However informative this is, it doesn’t change our CO₂ per capita numbers. It might answer why and it might point us in the direction of where to cut such numbers, but we have to first acknowledge that we are a population creating huge environmental impact per capita.

I believe there is really no need to be defensive over our emissions. I find it disheartening to read that Dato is not acknowledging the country’s greenhouse gases emissions on the basis that we have carbon sinks in our peat swamps and rainforests. While it is true that we have a carbon sink, it doesn’t negate the fact that we pollute. Would one encourage Bruneians to spend their money thoughtlessly if they have a ‘guaranteed’ source of salary? Similarly, dismissing such figures would have large implications on the nation’s attitude towards the environment. Admitting our mistakes has always been taught as a noble act; what harm is there to say ‘yes, we have a high CO₂ emission per capita. Let’s try and (or We are already trying to) do something about it’?

Humans have inertia and so does the population. When sacrificing certain convenience and comfort for the sake of our ‘future generations’, it is not always intuitive. I, myself, am no exception from the grasps of such selfish thoughts. Carpooling is definitely possible, but might cause some slight inconvenience and requires patience at times. Petrol, vehicles and road tax are cheap in Brunei, so ‘why bother?’ This is why we need wise policy makers and a good government, whom the population have been entrusted to, to take up initiatives to nudge the population in the right direction.

Many have labelled the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit as a failure. The world today strives on capitalism. The human brain is instinctively wired to want more, to think ‘more’ is better, more stimulating, more rewarding. Countries pointed fingers at each other, playing the ‘you play I play’ game. Perhaps it is time to look inwards and reflect. A paradigm shift of such unhealthy mentality is required and it is a personal hope that the people of Brunei, through our education, vision and national philosophy, achieve this together as a nation.

----

On a totally independent note, but you can say, related, here's a glimpse of what postgraduate students are trying to do for the country. If you're interested or if you have the resources to participate, please do contact the Bruneian Postgraduate Symposium. =)

For future reference,

20/12/2009

Fact or myth shocker (By Azaraimy HH)

Brunei has been the proud recipient of countless praises from the international community for its conservation and global warming mitigation initiatives and agenda.

But a recent report tells an entirely different story. According to a report published by the Inter Press Service on December 18, "On a per capita basis, a different picture emerges. With 7.2 tonne of CO2 per capita, Malaysia is still the third highest emitter in Southeast Asia. Brunei tops the list at 15.5 tonnes per capita, followed by Singapore with 12.8 tonnes. Thailand (4.3 tonnes) and Indonesia (1.5 tonnes) occupy fourth and fifth places respectively".

In a telephone conversation with the Deputy Minister of Industry and Primary Resources and Chairman of the Heart of Borneo project, Dato Paduka Hj Hamdillah bin Hj Abdul Wahab explained "You have to be very careful on how you frame your story, as you have to be very careful on how they arrived at their calculation - on what basis does Brunei top in terms of CO2 emissions?"

Trained as an engineer in the petroleum industry, the Deputy Minister was troubled with the report that claimed that Brunei emitted 15.5 tonnes of CO2 per capita, topping any other country in Southeast Asia.

According to him, "Firstly, Brunei is a perfect carbon sink - because the sultanate's pristine rainforests and its strong conservation policy (approximately 78 per cent of Brunei's land area is still currently under forest cover), not only that, the country's peat swamp acts as an ultimate carbon store."

Dato Hj Hamdillah went on to point out "The country's peat swamps absorb some five per cent more carbon thanthe forests, and together with our pristine forests - Brunei has an exceptional carbon sink."

"Secondly, although Brunei is an oil-producing country, if you look at it, we export 90 per cent of what we produce - that means that we roughly only consume 10 per cent of our resources."

Therefore, according to him, "This huge carbon sink that we inherited and preserve can easily absorb the 10 per cent. So, to say that Brunei is the largest contributor of CO2 in Southeast Asia, you really have to be very careful on how you absorb that fact."

He offered another logical explanation by saying that as Brunei has a small population relative to its oil and gas production, "any number per capita can get a bit funny".

"Do you say every Bruneian is thousands of dollars better than others since we have such a high per capita income? And similarly, can you really say that Brunei is the highest polluter of CO2 in the region since we have the highest per capita production of oil and gas? It all depends on how you measure it, and you have to be very careful on how you approach this," he reiterated, adding: "Such a calculation, or how they totalled-up their figures should be in line with the international standard."

He went on to include: "And if there is a standard benchmark recognised internationally on any certain nation's share of green house emissions, I think Brunei is very keen to it, so that we can know and act on it."

Dato Hj Hamdillah then listed out certain known facts: "But at the moment what we know is that Brunei Darussalam is one of the countries that does not contribute to the greenhouse gases because the sultanate's pristine forests act as an effective carbon sink. Brunei's peat swamp forests have been cited by numerous scientists as capable of storing carbon in its ecosystem."

"To find out later that we are labelled as the number one contributor of CO2 emitter to the atmosphere is shockingly surprising."

When asked, he offered his personal opinion that Brunei is not, because of the country's various initiatives, undertakings and regulations that protect and preserve the environment.

He added that Brunei has never stopped fulfilling its responsibility to mitigate global warming, but it is not the responsibility of the government alone. "Because more importantly, it is our personal initiative," he said.

"Even me, I will not switch on the lights at my own office unnecessarily, I open the window, I don't take my sweet time in the shower."

According to the deputy minister further on the report, "It is no use this blame game and one shouldn't wait for the authorities to enforce something. If one is aware about the environment, take the initiative to live in a responsible way so that we all can share this world in a sustainable manner."

Dato Hj Hamdillah offered several examples such as carpooling, which is the shared use of a car by the driver and one or more passengers, which according to him can be done effectively here in Brunei.

"Brunei is well-known to have several cars in one family - if one or a group of people go to the same office everyday or go in the same direction, to and fro - you can surely do something to organise some carpooling."

He believed this would further enhance the drive to mitigate against global warming by further limiting greenhouse emission.

In the mitigating adventure, the name of the game, he said is "continuous improvement". He explained that a country should strive to improve its environmental impact by continuously improving its energy efficiency.

"No country would emit zero pollution, and in the case of Brunei, we will continually produce oil and gas."

According to him, in the world we are living in, any effort to reduce global warming emissions must also produce sound business decisions that translate to profitability. "Driving efficiency up could lead to better utilisation of energy as this is the essence of the business in the global warming mitigation strategy."

Dato Hj Hamdillah recounted: "When I was in Shell, we use $120 million worth of energy. Imagine if only we were able to drive up our efficiency and improve just a mere 10 per cent of our energy needs that represents a cost reduction of $1.2 million, which is both profitable and would improve our environmental impact assessment," he said.

However, beyond making business sense out of it, the return of investment must also take into account benefits other than just dollar and cents. "Because producing a sustainable environment for a sustainable future and better quality of life makes out for good business sense."

Attended a Career Talk

2009-12-12T22:20:00.003Z

It's not often that you get a company from Brunei coming over to the UK to give career talks to students. In fact, this might be the first times I've seen a Bruneian company doing recruitment in the UK. I've always had a certain envy towards the recruitment drives you see from companies from neighbouring countries. By coming to the UK, it shows that the company is serious about recruitment and it has come to the country with the highest concentration of Bruneian scholars (i think).

Since this was by a industry I am involved in, it didn't take too long for me to decide to pop down. A large number of questions and opinions also started forming after I've read the 'facebook invites' (we can't live without facebook anymore huh).

So I was in London this afternoon for a career talk by Petroleum Brunei (PB). To be honest, when I was deciding whether to go, it felt a bit weird, especially considering my position. Nevertheless, as a Bruneian with an interest in the developmental issues of Brunei, I thought it'd be interesting to have an idea of what and how the industry is doing at the moment.

The talk started off with the PB personnels editing their powerpoint slides, with the projector display. I thought that was not very professional. Okay, they might have been short of time, but it looks really bad to be editing the venue and date of a recycled powerpoint slide in front of your audience.

Other than that, they started off being quite relaxed. Their tones were humble and honest, making it very clear that they are small and without any oil production at this point in time. They also highlighted their urgent need for subsurface human resource. It was clear that they are a small company - a national petroleum company starting 30 years late behind national oil companies of our neighbours.

However, as a citizen of the country, it was comforting to hear that there are unexplored blocks - meaning we can keep our fingers crossed that more oil might be discovered. It was also informative to have an idea of the time frame, giving an idea of how much the current facilities/reserves can last. Of course it brings about the urgency of the matter. I don't see that very often in Brunei, so in some way, I see it as a positive sign.

I enjoyed the talk because I got to ask as many questions as I wanted to - and they answered it in the most honest manner they could, which i appreciated. It was also interesting that PB has huge aspirations for a company of its size. That however means creating opportunities for Bruneians. While the dominant player in the industry limits itself to the Exploration and Production (E&P) business, PB has hopes for downstream businesses too. This is of course good news for chemical engineers because they fuel the downstream activities, as opposed to the E&P business where the majority of the expenses are dominated by the subsurface people.

I managed to have a good chat with the chief petroleum engineer who coincidentally used to work around the same workplace two summers ago. It took a while before it hit me who he was. It was in fact his fervour persuasion to convert chemical engineers to petroleum/reservoir engineers that reminded who he was! I managed to raise a few points which I thought was slightly pushing it a bit but the MD was very open to discussions and ideas. I was quite impressed with that but of course I should remind myself that it's a recruitment event and reality works with a different mechanism.

In short, I would say that it is a small, growing company with large aspirations, huge potential. Overall very impressed.

The Table

2009-12-07T16:30:00.009Z

On the first look,

It was battered and dirty.

On the second glance,

some elegance noticed.

He wipes the age-old armour,

reminiscing its past glories.

Experienced and sturdy,

yet used, retired.

Now called once again to duty,

He marches through the familiar battlefronts.

** this has brought procrastination to a different level. haha!

End of Term!

2009-12-03T12:05:00.002Z

Wow.. this term has flew by really quickly.

You can never really predict how any term will end up at such a place like Cambridge. You feel like you're in a whirlwind or caught in the tide of fast flowing water. And before you know it, you've been thrown hard on the ground, washed ashore. But at least you know you're alive.

The Magdalene Gown

2009-10-20T17:32:00.005Z

As a number of you would know, the gown is quite often used in Cambridge, especially when you're a fan of formal halls. This picture was taken before i headed off to the Scholars' dinner this year, held last Wednesday.

It dawned upon me that this would be the last time I attend such a dinner, being in my final year already. Then suddenly the piece of black cloth seemed so much more significant now. heh. The pair of cuff links were a gift from meisheng and was aptly at convenience for a prop. =)

The Scholars' dinner this year was slightly different to previous years. Other than the fact that I was served pork this time round (compared to vegetarian substitute), I had a very good chat with a biological dos, a MIT exchange coursemate and my dos. It was very good fun, especially now that my research is on biofuel.

I think magd people would appreciate that the picture captures the 'unique' design of the Magdalene gown. To read more, http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/cuhags/gowns/m.htm

Mercenary

2009-10-06T09:27:00.002Z

Designed the poster for the upcoming talk organised by the buddhist soc. Thought i'd share it here too.

Talk by Ajahn Brahm, organised by the Cambridge University Buddhist Society.

Mid-Autumn Festival

2009-10-04T05:20:00.002Z

As a result of jetlag, i was up at 5am. At about 6am, as I drew the curtains to check if the sun has risen, this sight caught me. So I fumbled over the dark to find my camera and took a few snaps.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

*Long is in Cambridge. and I had mooncake with Long and Ryan last night. =)

Singapore, Sept 2009

2009-09-14T03:35:00.003Z

Took the chance to snap some pictures of the younger cousins during the 100th day ceremony of ahma. I think most of them turned out pretty good. people were generally happier than previous occasions and less serious.

Yo-yo seems to be the in thing with the younger boys.
Jinliang (?) jumped into the mud puddle next to larry and got him wet and messy.

Not sure what was so interesting with that. I think they were pretty amused.
Some mixture of grains that we were meant to throw on the elders command. Thought it was an interesting mix of colours.

Monk/Llama

Ms and yj at jap restaurant for sushi buffet. Yj's hair is soooooo long. omg. hahaha

三年前。。 (Three years ago..)

2009-09-12T01:16:00.004Z

Freshers' Meal @ Escapade, Gadong. September 2006.

Freshers' Meal @ Escapade, Gadong. September 2009

Nostalgia seems to be the in thing lately. Just realised it's still Timberland. heh.

Good things don't come easy

2009-09-08T01:48:00.003Z

Sunset @ Oia, Satorini

A certain someone said, good things don't come easy.

The reason why I like this picture isn't only because it was a pretty dramatic sunset at the tip fo the island, but more so due to the fact that i needed to run all over the hilly roads of Oia to find this scene. But having gotten there, i found two photographers camping there already. Hence to frame the shot, i had to bend over the fence and stretched my body (quite risky now that i think of it haha) with the sun setting fast. hahah! i thought that was quite hilarious, but hey I was a tourist. =D

If anyone who has gotten the collage has not noticed, this picture was use in the background separating the two layers of pictures. ;-)

Sunset at Muara Beach

2009-08-23T15:56:00.002Z

I've always been a fan of sunset pictures. Family decided to make a trip down to Muara beach during the late afternoon - so i brought along the camera. Turned out to be quite a dramatic sunset. I think the sunset in South East Asia is very different to that in Greece. It's probably because the presence of clouds make it more interesting. Well, I'll let you decide when I put up the Santorini sunset pictures - which are long overdue.

Two of my favourite shots.

Greece - Athens

2009-07-30T16:08:00.005Z

Day 1
Lunch

Library of Hadrian

Water fountain - at the Acropolis!

Parthenon Silhouette

Chee Hui Tour Agency

Sunset from the Parthenon

Of Chants and Friends

2009-07-25T23:30:00.004Z

It has been a very interesting visit to Singapore. I must say it was a lot more enjoyable than any other trips I had before.

Though I do find it slightly amusing to call it interesting when i spent the majority of my time chanting in the temple. My education in buddhism has yet to involve chanting and rituals, hence it was pretty foreign. As skeptical I was, I initially did it out of goodwill for my grandma and respect for the efforts the family has put it. A few days into it, I figured that there should be some humility towards our senses and intellect as humans. A few days after it, I think I have slight withdrawals from chanting. Some tunes and snippets from the scriptures continue to play repeatedly in my head.

There's a form of peace (other than times i was nodding off cos i was too sleepy) that i find with that. I've told someone before that one of my ideal holiday would be one where I can be at a resort doing just nothing and leaving the world behind for a while. I think i found this actually quite similar once you get over the initial inertia. I have never chanted so much 'amituofo' in my life haha. I've also never eaten so much vege in a week before. I'm also quite proud of the fact that I didn't touch the bakua.

It's been a very healthy and enjoyable week. On most days i would be at the temple during the day and meeting up with friends in the afternoon or at night. I also got to know more of my singaporean cousins a bit more - hopefully that'll make sg less foreign next time i visit. I think it's really quite a blessing to have such a good state of mind over the last 10 days.

"May ah ma be well and happy"

The gifts

2009-07-02T16:10:00.006Z

I had been thinking of what to get my friends during their graduations for quite a while. Ideas sprung up once in a while, many of them I deemed too creative or too much work. However, time doesn't wait and it didn't. Tripos passed and the design project ended. I went for a very happening trip in Greece and came back to Cambridge. I got my results and was exhilirated. People left and came back from their 'graduation trips'. And still nothing concrete came out.

I thought, perhaps the memories we had were sufficient. Since friendship shouldn't be all presents and gifts. I have been pretty objective over the past 2 graduations, I might as well just get through this one.

Then it struck me. These people were leaving. It was three days before the first graduation ceremony. We were busy packing up our rooms during the day and gathering every night till early morning. We were trying to treasure as much time we had as possible.

It was also a good thing that the body seemed to require less sleep when it doesn't need to study. I was up by 7am every morning despite sleeping pretty late.

I was trying to piece together a photo collage for individuals. But it was way too late. Then it struck me that the whole thing wasn't about individuals in the first place. It's everyone and the fun we had, and the joy we saw people had. All came into place one by one and I was fortunate enough to have zw&my as my packaging team to present the gifts in a more presentable form an evening before graduation started.

I hope they like it.

Although groggy at most times, the exercise of making the collage was a nostalgic ride through the memory lane. Going through my albums photo by photo, i went through the unimaginable kitchen i had in Basing, I saw how happy we all were when we first cooked, I saw how blur we all looked in our first undergraduate year, I saw how proud ms and ryan were when they made that indescribable horse for Mable in his what was then the best room we can think of, I saw the jc the teapot (i must say i was very tempted to include but feared for my life a bit more), I saw the sun, the rain, the snow, the balls, the feasts, the formals, the cookouts, the trips, the adventures, the sunrises, the sunsets... Thank you all. =)

Graduation!

2009-06-25T18:31:00.010Z

I thought i'd make a small compilation of photos of people graduating. Since it lasts over three days, let's see how updated i can get.

St. John's

Queens' College

Christ

Magdalene

Fitz

New Hall

Robinson

Homerton

And then the three days marathon came to an end...

最亲爱的朋友, 祝你们一路顺风..

Magdalene Mayball

2009-06-19T07:48:00.005Z

All nighters seem to be the really 'in' thing for my life now. I've never been a fan of staying awake for more than 24 hours and have never done it before before this year. The Magdalene Mayball was in fact the third time I've pulled an all-nighter this year - the first being the LAN party and the second the design Project.

The Magdalene Mayball was the first mayball i've been to. I wouldn't deny that I, like most other people forking out a huge sum of money to attend it, had my doubs. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the night. It was splendid, awesome and utterly enjoyable. (lol, the last sentence sounds so british hahaha)

Of course most of the fun came from the great company that we had. Adding on to it was the thought that friends made over our undergraduate years will be leaving in their own separate ways in about a week or so.

Magdalene Mayball is the only white-tie ball in Cambridge. It meant that we had to rent our white-tie attire. I spent a significant proportion of the day trying to figure out where each component is meant to go. I'd say it was an experience. Not very fun. And we did the buttons the wrong way around initially until we were in the queue. It's a good the shirt was cleverly designed to allow such changes to be made relatively easily.

We had WeiShu come over before entering the ball to take some pictures with the dslr. I would say things weren't too well organised here among our huge group but we got managed to get some good pictures taken. I didn't bring my dslr in because i thought it didn't quite fit in to all the ultra formal attire. I also din want to spend the whole night taking care of my camera.

The night passed really quickly and I'll try to remember what happened. Since everyone was hungry by about half past nine, the first stop was the thai curry rice. This was followed by hot dogs and burgers. I had a thai curry, two hotdogs and a bacon burger. That was pretty satisfying.

We then moved on to some of the mini games they had on board. These included a two-person swing. There were just enough guys and girls to pair up to get on board which was pretty good. lol. There was also a shooting game and some 'hit the coconut' game which was impossible to score.

We wandered around that reached the master's lodge where we found a comfortable area to talk and rest our legs for a while.

We then proceeded to night punting which was pretty cool. The camb felt so different at night.

After punting, people were feeling cold and we headed over the silent disco. I thought it was pretty cool. We managed to some videos of us fooling about in the 'silent' with the help of the light from the phone. haha

From here on.. it was quite a blur to me. haha I remember drinking a few more glasses of the honey-tasting ginger rum, feeling quite sleepy at times, took a photo by the professional photographer, had a foot massage which was very enjoyable and then it was breakfast time.

Breakfast was a sit-down breakfast with newspaper. And you can see how excited we got. hahaha

We lasted till the very end of the ball and had the survivor photo taken. After that there was a long queue going out of the ball, so we thought we might as well take more photos among ourselves. I think meisheng's new camera was pretty good. and the lighting during the early hours of the morning was very good for taking photos.

We basically kept taking pictures until the security asked us to leave. Meisheng, hong sheng and i decided to over to meisheng's room to compile the pictures since everyone seemed to have very crazy schedule planned ahead fo them. Then came the idea of going to cafe nero for coffee - which we did. But anyway that's going beyond the scope do the mayball.

It would say it was very enjoyable. The food was excellent and the number of people in the college was very comfortable. Now i need to see the survivor photo to see whather it is worth the money.

I'll probably put up a slideshow of the photos soon..

Pride

2009-06-07T09:37:00.005Z

Always fun on hindsight. it feels really similar to climbing the Pinnacles really. =)

Design Project 2009

2009-06-06T09:22:00.008Z

I thought i should jot things down before the memory fades and disappears into nothingness.

The design project is basically a 5-week exercise to design a plant with a team of engineers. Groups were allocated randomly and it happened that i had a 5-membered group compared to the rest with 6-membered. Since groups were random, it was expected that there would be people with a range calibre and personality.

A few highlights of the project:

1.) The first 3 weeks were largely very painful and uncomfortable because my laptop was unrealiable and repeatingly tripping off. Hence i was working in department most of the time or in the computer room in magd. I'm a person who likes working in the comforts of my room so those days weren't the best days. 事倍功半 >.<

2.) The new computer came about two weeks before the project ended. I took it as a blessing as that was really when things started kicking in in terms of report writing.

3.) I think i generally enjoyed coordinating a generally pretty functional team. I also realise that my ability to spam people has been put to good use in this project.

4.) I knew that there might be problems with people working together, however i wouldn't deny that I hugely underestimated the magnitude of the issue. This was increasingly obvious towards the end of the project when people started getting stressed.

5.) The extensive amount of planning i laid out as the coordinator was primarily aimed at eliminating the need to lose sleep towards the end of the project. It was also a fallback option for any hiccups that might happen. What the plan couldn't account for were two major hiccups. and that was exactly what happened within the final two days of the final project.

6.) That meant that my 'functional' team worked in department from 9pm on Wednesday till 4pm on Thursday. without sleep. The only time i left the department was for a subway break which took 15 minutes. Other than that, i was either printing stuff in the computer room or in the tea room, in front of my computer working my ass off. That was 31 hours of solid work.

7.) I realised, once again, that the human body and mind is incredible. I never knew i could work continuously for such a long stretch of time, under such intense time pressure, with such focussed concentration.

8.) I don't think there was another time in my life where I sweared that much before.

9.) I found being politically correct superbly annoying towards the end. and i think I became pretty straightforward after a night without sleep.

10.) I realised that there are selfless people and selfish people in this world. And the way to treat selfish people is to be nice to them and get the stuff you want from them and let them do whatever they want. There is no need to explode on them because it doesn't help. It's pretty ironic.

11.) I realise that I prefer commitment to calibre in terms of 'qualities' of people. To put in the effort to draw up something using a program one had no former experience of, even if it was presented looking less neat than others, is an achievement worth commending.

12.) We won the 2nd best prize for the presentation even though only 2-3 hours was spent preparing it. Our final round of practise ended at 1.25 and the presentation started 1.30pm. I presented my area design as one of the 'unique features' of the plant. Since a large amount of skepticism had arisen regarding the use my recompression of oxygen rich stream, I put in backup slides with 'print screens' of the sources of information I found that deemed the design acceptably safe for use. It happened that the first question asked was on the safety of the oxygen rich stream and i conveniently brought up the back-up slides. The audience enjoyed that and we got a round of applause.

13.) I think i'm pretty proud of what the 'functional' group has achieved. I say 'functioinal' because there was a very obvious split in the group. I'm going to print my Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (PID) out and put it on my wall as decoration!

St John's College, Cambridge

2009-05-03T23:12:00.003Z

Picture taken by Ying.

I'm thinking of sending in my computer to the computing service because the fan is stuck and my computer keeps overheating and tripping. I'm not sure how long they will take to replace the fan but I hope they don't take too long. Anyway, i was backing up my photos and found this picture.

Post Tripos 2009 - Visit To Durham

2009-05-03T00:20:00.009Z

After a revision marathon of about one and a half months, my 3rd year Chemical Engineering Tripos Exams came to an end on thursday. The end of exams are less exciting this year as the 'year' has yet to end, with the design project commencing on Monday.

Anyway, I came over to Durham for the weekend to deliver shan's stuff from home as well as to get away from camb. I took the opportunity to take a few shots of durham.

Calm riverside - very typical scene of durham. These pictures were taken on the first evening when we were on our way to dinner. I actually wanted to take a few 'sunset' shots but the service at Nando's was extremely slow. Furthermore, the sunset was just a very undramatic dimming of light intensity - so nothing dramatic to shoot.

My cousin, Long, came over the next day and we went Durham sightseeing. We headed over to Durham's Cathedral and the Castle College. The 3 black and white pictures feature the cloisters of the Durham Cathedral. If you think it looks familiar, it's featured in the Harry Potter films.

I like the backlighting effect on this one.

Then we saw pretty flowers along the way. Long was vain but I shall not put his picture up. LOL

And finally, we had duck from Goldmine, London for dinner. Isn't it awesome?

It was a good trip - nice, lazy and relaxing. Shan's house was a bit too messy (even for my standards) so i was in her room most of the time. heh =P Other than that, I would be on my computer clicking away, watching series, catching up, gossiping or playing game with Long. I also managed to cook dinner yesterday. It's good to cook when you have proper stoves with actual fire, compared to a lousy single hob back in Camb.

Chuisan came over from Stockton (?) so I had lunch with them before going to the train station. The restaurant, called Fat Buddha, had pretty interesting interiors but i think i'll upload them once i get back to Camb. I'm now on my way back to camb and I've managed to get my laptop out and connected to the wireless internet. ;-)

Muji Delivery!

2009-04-22T17:00:00.002Z

Most of you would have known that I'm a fan of Muji. Since the academic year started in September, I have been searching for a clock of reasonable size to replace the previous green clock that went missing over the course of storage during summer. I don't wear a watch so when in my room, I'd have to go over to the laptop or find my phone to look up the time. However inconvenient it may be, it wasn't until a few days ago that I found this on Muji's website. I've never bought anything through the Muji online system but have frequented Muji stores in Hong Kong, Singapore and London.

Muji products aren't the cheapest thing but I just love their simplistic (and often interesting) design. I guess it gives a similar feel to why people like Macs. The clock costs about £7. I wouldn't complain about its price.

When the email came through on monday night saying that it has been dispatched, it said that it'll come in 5 working days but when it arrived when i checked the plodge today (weds). That was quite a surprise.

Yea, as you can see, i bought a few other stuff. Since there was a delivery charge to it, I thought I'd throw in a few pen and a file. I like the file - it's sleek and looks professional. Though it's expensive for such an item.

And yes, if you've noticed they've spelt calendAr wrong. =p

Flowers

2009-04-18T11:46:00.003Z

I was tired of revision and went around college taking pictures of flowers.. heh

This picture looks vaguely familiar. haha

I think i shall name the last picture - 'tripos'. haha! revision overload. ><

So....

2009-04-15T11:34:00.003Z

I think photos have become such essential items in my posts that I feel a bit lost without them. That is probably the reason why there hasn't been anything here for a looong while.

Anyways, I was back in Brunei for 4 weeks and as expected, Brunei is still the same old Brunei. I was following the legislative council meetings quite faithfully for the first two weeks. I actually wanted to go to parliament and listen to their debates but i was too 'lazy' to make the effort, especially with the jetlag and helping dad with some of his stuff. It's encouraging to see that there is at least some sort of check-point system going on now. Personally, from what I've read, i think the debates are not agressive enough.

Since I'm on this, another thought hit me while i was in Brunei. This was triggered by the Maktab Duli awards ceremony, celebrating the academic high-achievers of this year. So I happen to know that a number of scholars are Permanent Residents (Red ICs) of Brunei. Apparently, it was very difficult for PRs to get scholarships in Brunei many years ago. However, I think this 'policy' has sort of changed, with some of the most prestigious scholarships going to PRs this year. Now the question is, why is it that citizenship is not awarded, or rather made a requirement, on the acceptance of the scholarship and completion of their tertiary education. Surely these are people worth investing in. If the country is willing to spend 200-300 thousand dollars on a single person, why doesn't the country want him/her as a citizen? If citizenship is not granted, then we are still in effect funding citizens of other countries no?

Anyway, other than revising back home, it was kinda fun to participate in big family events. Qing Ming was two sundays ago and it was good to see familiar faces and noises again. It's a pity i din have my camera with me then as i remember wanted to take photos with a dslr this time last year when i visited granddad's place. Oh well, may be sometime during summer then.

So 4 weeks passed by pretty quickly, however monotonous it might seem. I spent the last 2 weeks indulging in 三国 stuff - comics and games. Probably not the best thing to do. I'm back in Cambridge for 3 days now. 11 days to my Tripos. Hope all goes well.

King's College Formal

2009-03-05T01:18:00.002Z

Thanks to ch and andrew, I had the privilege of dining at Kings' college Formal last night.

As you can see, the hall is not dissimilar to King's unique architecture. Food was awesome as well, especially in terms of display. I've been watching master chef lately and I think this is the only formal whose display looks vaguely similar to those I see on the programme.

The picture above was taken with the 450D balanced on two wine cups with a coffee cup for elevation of the lens for the proper angle. It was quite a delicate piece of balancing work which i spent quite a while playing around with. I think it seemed to worked quite well.

Cumsa Ball 2009

2009-03-01T20:37:00.004Z

So it was themed 'vanity fair' and it's the 60th anniversary of the founding of the society ever since LKY founded it (starting off with 12 members as we were reminded during one of the quizes).

Actually, last night seemed like a blur. I remember myself crouching on the floor most of the time, trying to frame a good shot of the performances. Our table was strategically positioned, thanks to ch but my seat was too angled for the shots to be of any use, hence i was literally running all over. BUT, it became even more annoying when they started dimming the lights during performances. I don't get it.. how do people sitting at the back watch the show when it's dark? Even my 50mm f1.8 couldn't see anything!

Generally, I think i enjoyed last year's ball better. I can't place my finger on exactly why. I have a feeling it's the venue. I think the hall is slightly tight this time round. The award ceremony got a bit dreary after a while and the jokes could be improved.

Then again, maybe i enjoyed the ball last year better because i needn't be on the floor half the time shooting! Food for thought..

Table Photo!

I'm wondering how to share all the photos i've processed. there's actually a very low throughput, but still a significant absolute amount. Since they are filled with pictures of people, i think FACEbook would be the way to go then. I dont normally upload my pics on facebook but i suppose it's the easiest way for this purpose..

The One Above, the supreme Director Sir

2009-02-23T20:10:00.011Z

This follows my previous post on the CUMaS Mnight 2009, only with a slightly different focus and it'll be pretty obvious.

The Directors Foreword:

"give me some good pictures of myself ok"

And so I've decided to do him a favour. I've always said editing pictures of guys are difficult, but after the task He set me, I think it has brought my threshold to a completely different level. Lol

The Director Sir sure looked happy..

And there he goes on his roll...

I think it's a pretty rare occasion to catch this dude not posing straight at the camera.. then again, when is he not posing?!

Jokes aside, I'm sure everyone agrees that his piece of work this year with the Malaysian night is, again in his own words, awesome and spectacular. Absolutely.

A CUMaS Production - Malaysian Night 2009

2009-02-22T01:00:00.012Z

Titled 'Stranger Things Have happened Here'. Now that the play has been successfully completed, I'm wondering whether stranger things will ever happen here.

In term of photographs, I have at least 500 shots of the play but no i will not process them until I get more free time on my hands. First, my seat wasn't the best place. I had the director's spiky silhouette 'nicely' framing most of my shots. Secondly, I had a very late night yesterday and a very early start to the day, ending right before the CUMaS Malaysian Night started. I was knackered by the time i reached Christ's Hall. Thirdly, I dont really see the point of processing the whole play worth of pictures - might as well get a video of it. =)

Anyhow.. I've picked a few shots that i particularly found interesting - or rather, strange. If it fits the theme.

The opening dance - i like the wall. Awesome dance, neat abs.
End of the dance.
Nicole's earring - she was sitting in front of me and I thought it was very interesting. Fits the theme too.

Now this I have to credit Jan Shim - a friend and a professional photographer who has claimed the 'leg shots'. Yes, he is good inspiration. Whatever you say, I say it fits the theme.

On a completely different context, he said:
why be a winner when u can be a catastrophic failure? (Jan Shim)
Those who watched the play, I'm sure you'll be able to relate.

It was a great show - intense yes, probably not the best play to watch after a stressful day, but great show nonetheless. The projector hiccup was unfortunate but everything did get through in the end. It's good to know sleep wasn't lost for nothing. =)

This obviously wasn't a failure!

Tun Dr. Mahathir - Malaysia at the Crossroads

2009-02-18T21:59:00.011Z

**updated photos - see below**

It seems like the University of Cambridge have got quite a reputation with shoe throwing lately, especially after the Premier of China was the latest victim. The health warning was given twice before the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir, began his dialogue - Malaysia at the Crossroads.

I'll be honest and say that I decided to attend mainly for photographic reasons, but also to have a taste of understanding why this man is so prominent among the malaysians.

Throughout his speech, I was crouching by the corner of the stairs trying to frame a good picture of him. As a result, my brain was mainly functioning as to how to get a better shot of him. The contents of his speech mainly passed as a blur to me, though I did pick up a bit of his summary of how Malaysia reached it's current state.

It seems like the issue of race is being played over and over again. I suppose it is inevitable in a multiracial country. However, he did point out that during the 1997 crisis, there was little conflict between the races, allowing the government to tackle economical issues. He also highlighted that in order for integration to happen, mixed education must begin at tender ages. The fact that ethnic races want to cling on to their own education system seems to complicate matters slightly more.

Drawing a comparison, it seems like back in Brunei, racial tension isn't as bad as in western malaysia (or so it seems). The free education system in Brunei also encourages most Bruneian Chinese to move into government schools after their primary education. In my opinion, it has produced very good results in terms of integration - I've not heard horror stories as bad as theirs. I just struct me that actually, the majority of the people who carry on their education in 'chinese schools' are in fact overseas malaysians. Then again, we mustn't forget that fact that brunei's economy at the moment is unsustainable and when the country will only be put to test when a economic pressure is applied on its population's survival.

Towards the end of the talk, there was a question posed by someone through email: What do you think of Mr Lee Kwan Yew?
↑ The cheeky smile on this face when he was asked what he thought of Mr Lee Kwan Yew. His responses were classic - using the opportunity to drop a few issues about the 3 cents water supply to singapore, the dispute with the islands as well as very subtly portraying his indifference towards his 'good friend's' less-than-glamorous remarks about him by ending with a reminder that he has yet to publish his memoirs!

I generally enjoyed the talk. I've always heard about people professing their admiration towards Dr Mahathir. Having come from a different country, it was never quite able to understand this. At least if you're talking about his singaporean 'best friend', it's a bit more obvious - in my case at least.

I overheard a few singaporeans declaring that they found it quite disappointing and 'not as great as expected'. I personally don't agree. I think it's the subtle details that shine in his thoughts and it is that which connects him to the malaysians he's speaking to. I've been educated well enough to understand some of the complexity in malaysia by my fellow friends but i'm sure they would have found it way more fulfilling that I did.

↓ So here's my favourite picture - the hands that moulded modern Malaysia.

↓ The party moved to the Old library where the former Prime Minister of Malaysia was able to mingle around with the students. It's also here where the picture frenzy began.
↓ Last night, Wei Shen has specially asked for a picture of him with his long-time idol, Tun Dr. Mahathir. So here it is. I also think this was the time when he was declaring his admiration of him. It's okay - he wasn't the only one.

↓ Group picture of my friends. I have to admit that amidst the chaos, this picture was quite difficult to frame especially when people were first taking individual photos with Dr Mahathir and this bunch of people suddenly formed a super wide fan formation. I was literally bending over to get everyone into the frame. Note that there was a wall of people behind me, so moving back would mean losing my 'prime location'. Anyway, i think the picture turned out well.

↓ Witnessing his overwhelming popularity, I wonder if anyone would make a full size poster of him. If this was my Sultan, I actually wouldn't mind. haha

↑ Tun Dr Mahathir with the current CUMaS President and Publicity Officer.
↑ Dr Mahathir with the people who made this opportunity available - I would say 'prominent figures' of the CUMaS administration since i can't find a better description.

↑ Yup, autographs too. I think it'd be cool to have one of my photos signed by him too.

↑ Dr Mahathir's wife greeted by students.
↑ The other pair of hands, the pair that held on through hardy decades.
↑ I think it's quite rare to find Dr. M with a such a smile..

** Free use of the above pictures is granted for personal and non-commercial activities provided the author is acknowledged, crediting me (Jin Yang) with a clickable link to this blog, i.e. freeeze.blogspot.com **

Printing Opportunities

2009-02-09T00:25:00.005Z

Even though digital photography has lead most pictures nowadays to exist in digital storage, there is an indescribable ecstasy to hold, feel and see photos printed in hardcopy. This is especially the case when you have spent hours of hardwork editing and capturing photos.

Recently, I've decided to try printing out some of the photos I shot. I've had my DSLR for about half a year now (times flies doesn't it?) and have collected a number of 'worthy' shots to print. A few weeks ago, just before heading to Cardiff for the L'Oreal Ingenius competition, I decided to place an order on Snapfish. Since they had 40 free prints for new registration, I thought I might as well take the opportunity to see how my photos look on print.

Conveniently, after spending 3 days in Cardiff, the pack of photos was waiting for my return in my pigeonhole! The pictures turned out quite satisfactory, though i wouldn't say i am very impressed with the prints. They felt a bit on the thin side and some prints had a few 'printing errors' - like an orange dot on a person's face. In terms of colour, they didn't differ too much from what i see on the monitor - though my monitor is not calibrated.

I had my photos left in the envelope for a few weeks. Shan took a few back to durham and so i though i'd make a collage on my wall with the remaining photos:
Would I order from Snapfish again? That brings us to the next service.

Besides printing out the photos, I also decided to try out Jessops' Photobook by CEWE. The cool thing about it is that it came with the option to use a downloaded program which can be used to make the photobook offline. This speeds things up without the time wasted in uploading pictures one by one. You have the option of customising each page with the background and alignment of pictures etc. It's a pretty fun process.

Once you're done with that, you just checkout and pay. Delivery charges extra but delivering to the nearest jessops store is free! and i just happen to live 5 minutes walk from the jessops store in the middle of town. The Snapfish service required a delivery charge.

I ordered a 'Large' photobook and made it for my family's trip to London and Paris. The price is abit steep but for a hardcover photobook with so much degree of customization, I think it's well worth it. I collected it after lecture the next day after coming back from Cardiff and was more than delighted with the quality of the prints! =)

Jpics offers more than just photobooks. The program i downloaded also allows me to order prints if i want to. I also found that Jessops is offering 50 free prints at the moment - I just cant find 50 new 'good' photos to print. Other than that, there's a poster printing service and even personal greeting cards, calendards, etc. I think for now, i'll be quite loyal to jessops - seeing that it's so convenient and user-friendly.

I think it's really a privilege to have such services within such easy reach! I am quite tempted to print a poster of one of the pictures from the snow but we'll see how that goes...

Greetings for CNY

2009-02-06T21:26:00.007Z

Was jus feeling inspired to do something creative and realised i haven't sent people any sort of formal greetings, so here you go!

Just as chinese new year is about to conclude, may you have a great year ahead!

best wishes,
Jin Yang
仁扬

White Cambridge - Part 2

2009-02-04T17:09:00.002Z

The thing about photography is that everytime you go through your collection of pictures, you tend to find interesting photos that you missed out during the first round of editing. So yea, here are more pictures of the snow in Cambridge.

I found that the trails gave the picture a lot of character. Not sure if you agree. I've got people saying that this shot is 'random'. *shrugs*

Snow on branches are always pretty - though not that easy to take. I spent the whole day trying to frame a nice shot of this sort.

Queens' College in heavy snow. My 450D got pretty wet by the end of the day but i guess the effort's well worth it.

White Cambridge

2009-02-02T17:49:00.005Z

As i was about to go to bed last night, my sleep was periodically disturbed by messages coming in for a planned snowfight at 8am this morning. I wasn't too keen on the snowfight since I've had my fun two years back. I've seen snow before so it's not tat exciting anymore - especially when walking to lectures will be so much more difficult with it around. However, it struck me that I didn't have my DSLR with me two years ago and neither did i have it during the ski trip!

So 8am i was out of my room - to take pictures of cambridge in snow. I dropped by the 'snowfight' scene just before going to lectures and had a few rounds of fun. On my way to lectures, i bumped into jc and hs and left my camera with jc. After lectures i had to 'collect' my camera from jc. And from there it spurred a whole afternoon of photoshooting.

The picture shows the miniature model of central cambridge (covered in snow!) There's also 3 people who randomly joined the phototaking session which turned out quite fun. I won't be putting their 'portrait' shots up for privacy's sake. Though i'm sure kenrick won't mind me putting his face up.

Willow tree by the backs.

King's College Chapel and Clare College - I love this vantage point.

Somewhere in Pembroke College.

Outside the Pathology Department.
And finally, the 'shot-to-death' King's College

I've also took the time to make my 2009 signature - just for the sake of it. haha! I think it looks better than the watermark on the liondance pictures, but those were there for reasons other than aesthetics!

Happy Chinese New Year!

2009-01-25T16:22:00.005Z

First of all Happy Chinese New Year! It's my 3rd year not being able to celebrate chinese new year with the family. I think I've grown rather numb to the whole festival by now. I remember how we used to coordinate huge celebrations during our first year. This year I think I need some time for myself.

I was in Cardiff, participating in the L'Oreal Ingenius competition, from monday to wednesday. It was a great experience working with my teammates and brainstorming to engineer the most best solution. We didn't win in the end but nevertheless, I enjoyed myself thoroughly over the three days. However, that also means that I've missed about 7 lectures. It's already week 2, so that means a lot of catching up to do!

This afternoon I witnessed, for the first time, the Cambridge University Lion Dance Troupe (CULDT) perform publicly in the middle of town. Other than supporting my friends who were performing, I thought i could get interesting shots. Being one of the earliest spectators to arrive, I realised spectators had to keep a distance from the performance - away from the lions, the drums, the cymbals, the gong! I wanted a close up shot of the drummer drumming away, but no i couldn't do that this time. When I asked the President of the Troupe for the permission, he said 'he needed time to think' but never got back to me after that. I thought it'd be a lot more polite to just say no at that time. I could only make do with the boring angle i was stuck with. maybe I should talk to them next year a bit earlier about photography. or maybe with lens with a longer reach.

( You can click on the picture to make it bigger/wider)

As for now, there's a london trip planned next week to see relatives in the uk. I think it's been a while for us to have a significant number of people here in the uk. I also realise I have a craving for duck. On the way back from Cardiff, we stopped by London to have duck rice at Goldmine, Bayswater. 7 bowls of rice - that was satisfying!

Anyway, til next time then.. Happy Chinese New Year!

University of Cambridge: 800 years, 1209-2009

2009-01-17T21:04:00.005Z

Tonight the bells rang to celebrate 800 years since the founding of the University of Cambridge. There was a light show in the centre of town, projected onto the Senate House. Having walked past the projections a few times over the past few days, it took little effort to get me moving after meisheng asked whether i wanted to go. It's once every 800 years - heh, i guess there's not much reason to miss it.

1209 - 2009. It's such a privilege to be here during this time!
The town centre was packed and cameras were everywhere - decided to take some very random street shots. I must say f/2.8 is still not very sufficient for low light photography. Nevertheless i think these two pictures turned out quite well.

What is Cambridge without old farts?! It was quite hilarious to have these old people screaming for the youngsters to stop standing in front of them. People where climbing onto chairs and standing on anything they could find to get a better vantage point. I guess old people have little patience for such nonsense!

The light projections started and I must say i was very impressed. It basically summarised the colleges of cambridge, famous people as well as our proud discoveries made by people from this institution.

Here is one of the projections that I liked, though having absolutely no idea what it is about!

Meisheng and Jiechao with the 800 year old University of Cambridge!
Meisheng and I with the 800 years celebration banner. "800 - transforming tomorrow"

To end this post, I would like to highlight that our streets in Cambridge are too small to accomodate such a crowd. It was near impossible to push our way out of the place when the show ended. Among the chaos, i overheard this conversation:

Person 1: Please be careful. I have 2 young kids with me.

Person 2: I have an 90 year old father-in-law with me.

Well that's all for now. Lent term has started. Let's hope it's a nice and peaceful term.. =)

Les Arcs Ski Trip January 2009

2009-01-17T20:52:00.002Z

A week ago 20 of us landed back in London after a week of intensive skiing. It was a week filled with friends, laughter, pain, sweat and basically lots of fun. I won't deny that there are ups as well as downs of having a large group comprised of people with different interests and backgrounds. Nevertheless I'm sure the majority, if not everyone, was addicted to skiing by the end of the week! That alone is good enough for me. =)

I also took the liberty of fidgeting with video-editing, something i seemed to have drop over my second year in Cambridge. Going through my youtube account brings back lots of memories in my first year. Chinese New Year Gathering, snow fights videos, videos of interesting lectures, malaysian food feast, etc etc. Good times~

Anyway, here's my latest video. enjoy!

London and Paris - The Family Trip

2009-01-01T10:04:00.006Z

First of all, Happy New Year 2009 to everyone!

Other than that.. there's too much to write for the family trip to London and Paris. I have yet to finish processing the 5gb of shots taken but the main ones are more or less done. I'm thinking of making a photobook out of the pictures instead of just printing pictures. To do that I need a reliable program and a lot of time to arrange pictures and write the description. I think i'll have shan and ying to do the writing. =P

Anyway, let the photos do the story telling..

At the British musuem - While ying and shan were enthusiastically exploring the history of humankind, yan and I preferred the bench and saving our legs. Boredom took over and silliness followed on..

The Natural History Musuem.. dinasour and shan got so excited about the darwin exhibition. She kept telling us the story about this guy called Wallace who should have been given more credit for Darwin's theory.

Paris. We stayed at St. Christopher's Inn which was a pretty decent hostel. The distant was a bit far from the centre of town but the metro was quite convenient. The first day/night was spent exploring the eiffel tower and the arc de triumph.

Here's mum and dad.
And the three sisters..
and the eiffel tower..
2nd day was spent at Disneyland. Weather didn't cooperate very much and it was drizzling towards the late afternoon. We had our all time favourite pork ribs for lunch =). There were a few casualties that included ying losing her hat again (2nd time in disneylands) and shan's phone stolen. But other than that, we got back to the hostel at night safely and very tired..

I thought the 3rd day was the prettiest - i finally got to realise why Paris is 'beautiful'.

At the Luvre - which was closed that day. oops!
Inside Notre Dame
Sunset in Paris..
4th day at Sacre Coeur. Only Ying Shan and i went. Mum, dad and yan were too tired to walk. We met a bunch of 'string tiers' at the entrance to the attraction. It was quite scary as two gangs of there were guarding the entraces of the walkways and we had to duck our way through them to get past. Ying wanted to go back to Notre Dame to climb the tower but spent our time shopping on the streets instead.

That's a very very brief summary of the trip. Now on to that photobook.. and oh yes, i'm going skiing this saturday! woots!

Cambridge on a Frosty Morning - Part 2

2008-12-17T09:01:00.003Z

Yup, more photos of Cambridge - I'm sure Cambridge doesn't need the these pictures. Like I said they have been shot to death, but since I am in such a beautiful place, i thought i might as well make the most out of it. It's very true that I have taken its beauty for granted most of the time. Life in Cambridge happens at too fast a pace during term, there's just no time to take in what your surroundings have to give.

I think these two pictures have quite similar themes.. comments?

Credit to jc for spotting the lady walking past and calling for the shot. =) I think it's a very powerful image.

I will be on holiday in two days time. My family's coming over to visit and we'll be going to London (urgh) and Paris. I am already looking at googlemaps and locating places in Paris. I think that's part of the fun of travelling. I also realise that it'll be the first time the 450D goes travelling. I'm bringing the IXUS along as well tho. Probably let one of my sisters take random shots as they like - it's always good to have a different viewpoint.

St John's College, Cambrige

2008-12-16T11:46:00.002Z

Was going through the photos and decided to process a few more for the fun of it. This one turned out quite nice though i must say i didn't expect anything from it at first. I must credit this to jc since she wanted the shot of the light shining through the windows. The overall feel reminds me of King Arthur and his knights. =)

Cambridge on a Frosty Morning

2008-12-12T14:07:00.002Z

A very random agreement brought jc and I around magd and johns taking photos this morning. it was meant to rain but by 8am, the weather still looked promising. It was bloody damn cold and most of ground has frosted over.

After procrastinating further from work and deciding to process a few more pictures, here are the results.

Cyclist in front of Magdalene College's main gate.

Somewhere in Trinity.The famous Bridge of Sighs
Magdalene's College Pepys Library.

Something different finally. A frosted leaves on frosted grass. i think this is my favourite. Everything else in Cambridge has been shot to death. haha

Recalling what i did

2008-12-11T08:44:00.008Z

It's about the second week of the hols now. Time really flies. The last two weeks of term passed as a blur, a blur sustained by lack of sleep and adrenaline rushes. Towards the last week, I had about 5 supervisions to prepare for and with 2 exercises deadlines, it wasn't the most fun. There were one or two formals inserted here and there such as the Trinity Hall formal and the Newnham formal right at the end of term.

It was quite suprising to see a large number of chemengers at the Newnham formal as it was pure coincidence that we met the whole gang there. We bummed around in mh's room till about 3am till heading home. It was the last day of term as well as the submission date of two exercises - all the reason to enjoy, talk and waste time.

The next day was another late night. After buying our ski clothes, lunch and some table tennis, I decided to join a gaming party at night. I do enjoy computer games, though i don't play it as often anymore. But anyway, it was an eye opener - about 20 people crammed into a relatively large room. A few of us had to go to the second floor as there was enough space downstairs, and very appropriately called our place the 'noobs corner'. I'm not sure whether i enjoyed it. I can see how such an activity can be fun - we do it on a smaller scale during my summer internship - but only when u have people of similar standards around.

After paying the sleep debt, it's back to revision. haha! I realise that I have about one week left before the family comes. Together with a ski trip planned right before term starts, there's not much time to recap what is taught over the term!

Oh, on a final note, it seems like google has finally came up with a tasks list! =)

The Holidays are here..

2008-12-07T11:39:00.002Z

Taken during the CUCES Christmas Dinner in The Anchor, Cambridge

Footsteps

2008-11-23T09:58:00.003Z

Taken on the footpath at Benson Court, Magdalene College, Cambridge

Formal in Exile - Girton!

2008-11-22T18:02:00.006Z

The title is pretty extreme i know and i got the inspiration from the Magd engineering dinner-in-exile. Apparently the engineers are going to belgium this year and the chemical engineers are not invited because of the lame excuse that there aren't enough space on the coach. hmph!

Anyway, we went to Girton College for a formal on thursday. It was quite an intense day with lectures, meetings, group discussion, exercise class, supervision, a weblab experiment that overran and finally a taxi ride to Girton. By the way, Girton is the furthest college from the centre of cambridge.

You can see that Girton is actually quite a 'tourist' attraction for cambridge students, especially when you stroll into the plodge and and see an array of 'products' behind a glass panel. =P

I quite like the hall, but it reminds me of a train station somehow. probably due to the very interesting ceiling. I wasn't very much interested in taking pictures of people tat night because it was way too dark for the f/2.8 lens to take candid shots (of girls). But the guys seemed desperate for photos and started posing. =P that is onli a fraction of them.

I decided to take very random stuff as we toured the college - i quite like these two.

It's the second last weekend of the term. Time really flies! Though strange enough, this time i take no comfort to the fact that there is only one and a half weeks of lectures left. Two exercises due on next Friday and I have been in front of my computer typing away since last night. I thought i should do something different and hence the blog update. I'm off to cook something nice for dinner!

Magdalene Mayball - to go or not to go?

2008-11-12T15:50:00.005Z

It's the end of the fifth week it's worth a blog. I found this in my phole after coming back from department this afternoon and got inspired to snap a few pics. It's an invitation to the Magdalene Mayball.

If you read my previous post about Magdalene College, Cambridge, you should know by now what a mayball is all about. £280 for a pair of non-dining tickets, £360 for the dining tickets. One night. You tell me if it's justifiable.

Since mayballs and fireworks go quite well together, I'm posting the picture of the fireworks during Guy Fawke's. It wasn't spectacular at all, with most of us reasoning the poor performance being highly correlated to the credit crunch. Nevertheless while going through the shots, i found this that was quite an interesting shot.

Now the race till the end..

You know you've hit your limit..

2008-10-29T00:41:00.002Z

I don't normally copy and past msn conversations, but this is exceptional. Let's see if you get it,

jinyang says:
how's ur weekend

Elfling_magus says:
the previous, or the following? lol

jinyang says:
the current one

Elfling_magus says:
er

Elfling_magus says:
currently it's a weekday

Well, this is what happens when you wake up at 6am, skip lectures and have to stay up the whole night to for a project due tomorrow. it was tuesday btw.

Queens' College, Cambridge - Guest Night.

2008-10-25T09:36:00.004Z

The Bruneians at Cambridge had quite an extravagant meal at Queens' College last night. I never knew it would be possible to dine in Queens' College old hall before. As you can see, the old hall is a huge contrast from the modern-looking hall used for the normal formal. The first thing that struck my attention was the amount of gold in the hall. It's quite an extravagant hall to be honest.

At a rather pricy cost of £18.90 for the meal, it is not suprising that the event was a black tie event. Here's a rather smug looking picture of me in my black-tie, only possible with the convenience of full length mirror which came handy in my room this year. I'm quite happy that I've used the pretty expensive black-tie attire more than several times already, minimising the cost-per-wear each time i take it out. haha!

The menu features the famous 'Mathematical Bridge' that links the old part of the college to the newer Cripps building. It's quite a trademark of Queens' and Cambridge itself, spawning a number of tourist myths. One of the most popular one is that the bridge was built by Newton without bolts but was taken apart by an engineer later who couldn't put it back. Yes, interesting - but unfortunately not true. There was an actual fireplace in hall. I was quite impressed.

The dessert was awesome!

Generally, as all Bruneians are (hehe), the company was great. There were quite a few discussions on the on-goings of news back home. It seems like yian nee also has the habbit of stalking the Borneo Bulletin webpage every morning! There has been a few sparks of interesting thoughts that might inspire me to write a few more blogs. Probably a good change from photos - they will come will when I feel like writing. :)

New Hall/Murray Edwards College Formal

2008-10-21T23:01:00.003Z

Another formal - this time at New Hall, which has been given 'Murray Edwards College' as its new official name. New Hall still sounds a lot more familiar. For family members, New Hall was Yee Wan's college many many years ago.

If you look at the Full Gallery, you'd see the new wine list with Murray Edwards College nicely written on it. Apparently, though it didn't catch my attention when i walked in, the signboard at the entrance of the college has been changed too. Nevertheless, there were still a few remaining artifacts of 'New Hall' such as the serviette, chocolate, hall entrance tickets and the menu, all of which were pretty popular among us since the time of 'New Hall' is ending soon.

It is also rather worrying that I have been pennied at a alarming frequency lately. Having survived the past 2 years without pennying anyone or being pennied, the recurring theme at last two formals have been rather shocking. Here, again, shows the work of our host, Jiechao, who managed to penny me, and only me, twice over dinner. (I can't help but point out the phenomena of refraction in this case, since the penny should obviously be lying at the bottom of the glass, nvm me) Also, if you look close enough, you can see the reflection of the famous New Hall Dome on the lower section of the wine.

Lastly, the photo below turned out pretty good after some post-processing. I added the sepia tone to fit the tone of reminiscing our 'last New Hall formal'. There are lots of pictures of people in the Full Gallery if you are interested.

[Link to New Hall Formal Gallery]

Formal Hall at Clare College, Cambridge

2008-10-16T23:42:00.006Z

Formal halls are essential to the Cambridge experience and it doesn't fail to excite and entertain even when you're here for years. There are just too many colleges around! I mean, where else can you wear your gown and walk along the streets without people giving you stares? You even feel good wearing your college gown!

Thanks to Karen, our host of the night for an excellent Clare College Formal. Of course, I brought my camera along and I'm quite happy that I have finally shot a set of pictures unique to Cambridge.

[View the Clare College Formal Gallery]

Nicely prepared butter and bread - pretty standard for the start of the course.

Excellent main course, okay we saw the menu before deciding on today. Duck was good. Lastly, wine. If you check the Full Gallery, you'll notice a penny in a glass of wine. The person who has been 'pennied' is required to down the glass of wine. You'll also notice a 20p coin on my dessert, and the consequence of that if you check the next picture. Yes, silly cambridge rules on pennying.

Clare College Hall.

I'm putting this picture of chee hui here becuase it suprisingly turned out very good. I wonder how i got the background to be motion blurred with (most of) chee hui in focus. I should start practising these shots for their graduation! heh heh

[View the Clare College Formal Gallery]

Photoblog: Year 3, Week 1

2008-10-15T13:34:00.005Z

Very random selection of pictures that i managed to take over the past week.

Welcoming the new Chemical Engineers at Department. Lots of pizzas and drinks. Sponsored by ExxonMobil.

Cambridge University Buddhist Society Squash. Trying to take a picture of the bookmarks Shan and I designed last year. Having signed up for quite a number of different societies this year, I have a feeling my involvement this society will continue to stay low.

The number of 'random' squashes I've been attending surpasses those I went in the past two years. Kayaking, Caving and tomorrow the photography one.

Free Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook, presented by British Petrol (BP) to everyone who got a 1st or 2.1 in their Part I Tripos.

Back for More.

2008-10-10T09:48:00.005Z

One of the reasons why this blog has been pretty inactive is because I am currently organising a Skiing trip to UCPA Les Arcs. The ever-increasing number of participants has reached 20 yesterday and potentially 25 when we get things finalise.

It takes quite a bit of organising when the group is so huge. There seems to be a huge time lag between the first person who takes action and the last. Then again, i'm sure it'll be all worth it when we reach the ski slopes in january!

Here's a picture for reminiscence.

Argentiere, December 2007

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri

2008-10-01T06:52:00.002Z

updated pic: The Sighting of the New Moon - from my house!

Best Wishes from Jin Yang

Will be leaving for UK on thursday. I'll see Brunei in 9 months time i think. It's been an interesting summer. =)

The Melamine Witch Hunt in Brunei

2008-09-30T16:12:00.003Z

I am sure I am not the only one who holds this opinion, but I find that journalism in Brunei really needs an improvement. The fundamentals of journalism is to provide clear up-to-date knowledge and information to the general public. Beyond that, thoughts and opinions to fancy up the facts.

In the dynamic world we live today, there are critical information that we need to know, especially at certain times of danger. Let's take the possible collapse of AIG/AIA, my alarm only rang when I was talking to my friends from neighbouring countries about the intensity of the issue. It was not only a day or two later that Bruneians begin to write to the opinions page of Borneo Bulletin asking AIA Brunei for clarification.

We saw a similar case with the melamine issue. Apparently the Ministry of Health Press Release was dated on the 20th September. The press release was in Bahasa Melayu and basically asked the public the withdraw products containing milk and made in China. Note that this is a precautionary action and not finger pointing products that contain melamine. The criteria for withdrawal is 'contains milk' and 'made in china'. Now, a few articles that came out in the press listed a few products that are meant to be withdrawn, including the White Rabbit Sweets, Yili Milk etc.

It is okay to list specific products, but when the press misinterprets the MOH press release and starts naming entire brands, it becomes a defamatory act. The impact was huge and such was the case with Vitasoy products. The Vitasoy in tetrapacks do NOT contain milk and is manufactured in Hong Kong, so theoretically uninvolved in the issue. In fact, Vitasoy International stocks in Hong Kong rose amidst the melamine scandal since people turned to dairy alternatives. However, because 3 products contain milk powder, the entire Vitasoy brand was under the banned list here - according to the newspapers, leading to a whole lot of confusion in the Brunei market.

As to help my dad's overworked staff (with Hari Raya just around the corner), my past few days have been spent drafting countless letters addressed to different authorities, scanning newspapers every day, clarifying matters with the Ministry of Health as well as visiting press offices around Bandar.

I am glad that both Brunei Times and Borneo Bulletin cooperated well with our requests and statmements. Here's the result. I hope it made things clear to the public.

http://www.bt.com.bn/en/home_news/2008/09/30/vitasoy_free_of_melamine

http://www.brunei-online.com/bb/tue/sep30h8.htm

Bandar Waterfront

2008-09-29T14:35:00.004Z

My family went for dinner at Fratinis at the Bandar waterfront area last night. I must say that I prefer the bandar Fratinis over the one at Gadong. First, it's a lot less conjested and besides the slight fishy smell, the waterfront is actually quite pretty.

I also noticed that the monument built to mark the Sultan's 60th birthday was highlighted with interesting lighting schemes that kept changing their set of colours. Here's the result.

Around a month ago, I had dinner at the exact same place with Ben and Aaron, extremely good friends all the way from the start of primary school. We had a nice long chat, enjoying our dinner in the outdoor area of the restaurant. Coincidentally it was also the night of the lunar eclipse. I'm not sure whether it's correlated but the moon was huge. It's a pity i couldn't get the details off the moon. This was taken from my seat but this was before my 17-55 came about so the picture quality is a bit substandard.

Countrypatch Cafe. The Cosy Cottage Experience

2008-09-26T12:07:00.007Z

Rustic. Cosy. Country. Besides good food and excellent drinks, those words describe the Countrypatch Cafe, located next to Cafe Twelv in Kiulap in Brunei's Capital. It's quite hard to miss if you're driving along the main road. I visited it shortly after its opening just not long ago, armed with my new found interest and equipment. This resulted in the following set of pictures, which was fortunate enough to find their way to Yen Shing's (the graphic-designer-to-be) interest.

Since I will be leaving in a few days time, I thought I needed to have a look at the end-product of the joint effort two amateurs! I was in for a suprise. The print-out was good and I am glad it adds to the ambience of the Countrypatch experience. Since it's no suprise anymore, I think I should have the permission to post the pics here now.

Personally I find its drinks especially refreshing. Nothing too filling nor tasteless. Just nice for me. It's a great place to a good hangout for meet-ups or even just for a chat. To be honest, the other reason why I decided to bring my sisters over was to have to another go at the drinks. I'm leaving for UK soon so you can't blame me for the need to satisfy my cravings!

Make sure you try the dessert after your course of drinks and meal. Here I have to thanx yenshing for constantly stuffing me with a whole array of desserts as frequent as I visit the place!

Enough said, you can check out the rest of the pictures in the gallery below.

[View the Countrypatch Gallery]

Chinese Opera comes to Brunei.

2008-09-23T23:54:00.008Z

Every year, starting from the mid-Autumn festival onwards, the Chinese temple in the middle of town will host a whole series of chinese opera performance for two whole weeks. This was held in celebration for a god's birthday. Last night was my family's turn to 'co-host' the event so we went over to temple.

This temple has quite a bit of history in Brunei. I'm not sure how old exactly it is, but it was said that the previous sultan fully supported its construction and commission, topping up the money pooled by the chinese community by 100%, as well as being present during the opening ceremony.

Two performers paying respect to the gods.

I particularly like the expression on my aunt, though I'm not sure what she'll say when she sees this picture. =P

[Click here to view the complete Gallery]

Bukit Shahbandar

2008-09-21T03:22:00.004Z

Decided to climb Shahbandar, this time with Shan, dad, Jances and Jason. Felt relatively easier this time, especially compared to the terrain at Mulu. Also decided that I can be fit enough to carry an EOS 450D in a Lowepro Slingshot 200AW bag. Survived through with very few photos - mainly due to consideration for the large group though I particularly like the first shot. =)

Ben's Birthday

2008-09-20T05:07:00.004Z

Another family favour for a nephew's birthday. I particularly like this picture - think it was the best.

It was held at RBRC. Coicidentally, I met my teacher from ISB there as well as a colleague from the BSP project i was working on. I had a good chat individually to the each of them. It was good to follow up on the current ongoings of the project and to know that my summer work was well appreciated.

I won't be posting the entire album here because it's full of kids pictures whose parents I don't know. I think there were a few pretty good shots but I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to put them here. *shrugs* If you're family and you're interested, u can ask me for the link to the full gallery.

Tokens of Appreciation

2008-09-15T14:12:00.007Z

Contrary to what a lot of people think, photography isn't all about the 1/50 of second when u trigger the shutter. There's a large deal of anticipation, thinking, framing before the shot is taken and way more work after you plug the memory card into your computer. Just because it's digital (not film) doesn't mean it's easy. Post-processing always kills me and if not for the satisfactory results that I get, i think i might easily turn back to picasa to deal with the photos! Hence, as with all other forms of artists, it is not suprising that photographers yearn for the acknowledgement that he/she has done a good job.

However, as an amateur who is still finding his way around the photographer world in the dark, I am more than grateful that my summer has been made rather interesting with lots of events and things to shoot and explore. Two cousins' weddings [Ah Hao and Jimmy] back to back nearly immediately after I got my first dslr was crucial in helping me climb the functionality learning curve of my camera.

After coming back from my trip from my Mulu adventure, I was told that my cousin left something for me before she left for the US. I've come to realised that photography has become a tool of networking and it is things like these that further assures my viewpoint.

A token of appreciation for only 30 minutes of photography during Alyssa's birthday. I was more than delighted when i got it - not for the money, but for the appreciation that comes with it.. =) I am going shopping later.

Another gift i received, owing to photography, is a Brunei Shell Petroleum branded thumbdrive. It's not superb, but I find the design very neat. I was asked to attend the BSP Contract Signing Ceremony to receive a prize but decided to snap a few shots instead, which earned me the thumbdrive, as with others who helped out with the logistics.

There are times when I begin to wonder whether the time I spend on photography is worth it. I must say that there seem to be unspoken responsibilities when you hold a DSLR. I don't shoot for a career so it's not money that I'm after but times like these that prove that my efforts do actually pay off. It takes a whole night to process photos, but years to build relationships.

BSP Contract Signing Ceremony

2008-09-13T00:00:00.001Z

***

I finally found the time to process the rest of the photos for the BSP Contract Signing Ceremony 2008. I'm also trying out out Jalbum so here are the rest of the pics.

[View the Complete Gallery]

***

30th August 2008

I was asked to attend the BSP contract signing ceremony for the new scholars this year. It's actually my first time to attend such a ceremony since i joined my cohort pretty late.

I took the chance to test out the new EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 lens. Even when reviewing the pictures on the LCD of the EOS 450D, two things immediately came to mind - sharp and nice saturation. This lens has been largely debated as a L lens without the red ring.

The ceremony was not only to give out the BSP Scholarship contracts but also to acknowledge graduates and mid-scholars who attained good resutls. I had my share with the smaller trophy on the side for the mid-scholars. =) Though having said that, I still don't know how they normalise results across so many universities.

I'm going to Mulu for around a week and since I'm away from civilisation, there won't be any posts from me here. Keep commenting or tagging and I'll reply when i get the chance to! The EOS 450D won't be following me to Mulu because as much as I love to shoot, I would also like to enjoy my adventure. My handy IXUS 800IS be following me though. Let's hope I get decent pictures when i get there!

Mulu Adventures - Hearfelt Thanks

2008-09-11T02:06:00.009Z

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to read about our experiences here. It was a great experience and I thought I would add in some closing credits and remarks from some of the group members to mark the end of the Mulu Adventures series.

From Siew Kit, our organiser and very capable leader;

Dear comrades, Welcome back to the comforts of your home.

Firstly, a very much thanks to both of our host families,
those of William and Jin Yang. They have been fantastic.

I hope all of us will have fond memories of the trip. And for
the record, I never said that this will be a relaxing trip.=P
I wish to thank all of you for making this trip a smooth and
memorable one.

Thanks all. And happy preparing for the new academic year.

From Yijin, my dearest dad and the source of many entertaining jokes;

heya, my turn to spam another round of thank yous.
first of all, thanks for letting an old man like me on the trip.
siew kit suggested it to me rather casually one casual day
and i accepted it rather casually as well. if i knew it
involved crawling up the pinnacles i might have had
declined then =P

and thanks again to sk for organising everything.
spamming faceb with details. liaising with pple in mulu. and
delivering 2hrs sermons daily in the week leading up to the trip heh.

thanks william for the seafood meal in miri. and giving us a
place to stay for the night. unfortunately, none of us staying in the
room had the brains to prevent hypothermia in the room =P
thanks to the numerous photographers during the trip,
painstakingly documenting the painstaking trip to the top of the
pinnacles. and back down from it.

thanks to radio singapore who's unfortunately always off at
high altitudes. and radio brunei that steps in to fill the void.

thanks to the salt and lime holders for torturing nematodes
that attach to us.

thanks to the cooks who prepared the two meals in camp 5, and
the people who brought miscellaneous food that prevented
starvation. thanks aili for always feeding me with scraps.

while we're still on the topic of food, thanks jy for showing
us the foodie places in brunei. kolo mee pok was imba. buy
a packet of the stone dust so that we can cook that in camb? =P

thanks to the carrom players that nite in hq. never expected
that playing carrom can make one high.

thanks jy for the trip to brunei, the stay in brunei, the
numerous times ur family treated us to meals. thanks for
caving in to our demands of exploring the empire instead of
another ulu place called temburong.

thanks to those who constantly tried to hook me (esp my dear
grandson) up with other girls. and thanks (?) for making me the
butt of many jokes, especially when jy's car is within a 100m
radius of the gadong exit.

thanks to me for being so bored in typing this essay haha.
have a good rest everyone, and see u guys again in camb/london.
let's have a reunion meet-up sometime somewhere!

From Chee Hui, our resident Radio Singapore who constantly provides us with interesting news, opinions and facts. He wants to clarify that he switched channel at the last 400m of the Pinnacles to ladder status update!

Heya,

Wow, looks like this trip came with the full package -
organiser (SK), hosts (JY and William), photos (ZW especially),
photo processing (thanks JY!) and even a travelogue
(thanks JY again!)! Sheesh, makes me feel so bad since the only
contribution i made on the trip is just to let you guys enjoy
radio singapore =P. Anyway, thanks again to everyone - it was
great having you guys around, the trip wouldn't have been so fun
if not for the company. Catch up with ya all in the UK and in the
meantime, let our bodies rest for the next mega adventure!

From Aili, a new friend I got to meet from the trip;

Hello everyone, It was great fun hanging out with you guys.
Thanks for making me laugh so much, good luck in your new
academic year and hope to see you guys again :)

From Meiyi, my dear daughter-in-law. i hope your mum doesn't kill me when she sees or hear about your injury;

Hello!

Thanks everyone for making this trip an enjoyable one, with all
the crap talking n card playing! JSpecial thanks to SK for organizing
the trip, JY n William for taking us arnd their areas and treating
us to gd food!

Do take care n see u all soon!

From myself;

hello ppl
thanx sk for doing the organising! it was a great trip, but prob no
second time there for a while. haha.. definitely great memories and
I'm busy recalling them as I slowly write my blog entries about our
adventures. Do check it at freeeze.blogspot.com for updates.
(written version of the telecast =P) haha

thanx everyone for being great companies and taking care of one
another during the trip.

thanx to william n your family for the great hospitality and
prayers you ppl made for us.

to those who came to brunei, it was great to have u ppl
around! =D

lastly, talking cock is fun. hahaha
enjoy healing your aching bodies and sunburnt skins.

Here's a tribute to all who endured our mega Mulu adventure!

Words of appreciation from fellow blog readers. They serve as constant encouragement to document the trip in writing and pictures. =)

maaan~ i want to go. i can't believe that i am a malaysian and i haven't gone
there.
WH

whoa...there seem to be a lot of drama in ur trip. wat an adventure...pls
keep updating ur blog=) haha it's starting to read like a novel.
JC

Good Job with the blogging! =D
YJ

very very interesting!!!:) and u made me hungry with the kolomee!!!
vui

seems like u had GREAT fun ehh:)~
CX

temburong now seems like a playground compared to mulu...
Von

This is really awesome..
Kamilin

Day 5 to 7 - Out of the Jungle. Living the riches of Brunei!

2008-09-10T05:48:00.010Z

Day 5

The journey from Mulu, via Miri, to Brunei took nearly an entire day. When my friends said they wanted to visit Brunei, I wanted them to experience (in my opinion) the two best things Brunei has to offer - The Empire and Temburong. I have yet to experience Temburong myself but from what I heard it's pretty awesome. Nevertheless, it should be quite obvious that these two places are at the far extremes of one another.

On reaching empire and bringing my open-mouthed friends around the resort, it didn't take long before the group decided that they would forego the Temburong trip. The problem was whether we would piss off the tour operator that we had promised we would go. While contemplating how to word ourselves, my mum called them up and cancelled our trip.

Below is the picture of me answering my mum's call. Haha!

We stayed at the Waterfall, so i took a shot of the majestic architecture.
Group photos during sunset:

The night was spent sleeping in nice comfy beds, a large contract to the wooden surfaces we got at Camp 5. Huge down pillows and duvet were again a luxury for us who literally just came out of the jungle. I brought my laptop to the empire and it was great that the waterfall provided free wireless internet. Yijin had some good news through his e-mail and the rest took the chance to reinstate their online existance one by one.

Day 6

It was decided that we would try out the resort sea activities such as ocean kayaking and parasailing today since we had extra cash to spare from not going to Temburong. Yet, breakfast needs to be settled and where better to go for breakfast than Ah Lai Kolo Mee - next to Bee Seng Quarry. If you haven't tried this and you're in Brunei, you're missing out on quite a bit. I made the usual joke that the special ingredient in the mee is the 'stonedust' from the quarry!

Here's a torturous picture for those who have tasted it:

When we got back to the empire, we were told that there wasn't any ocean kayaking. Other activities were available but they were a bit pricey, so we took the complementary kayaks at the lagoon and paddled around. A bit of water volleyball and some rather intensive wrestling at the bouncy platform on the water. I suffered greater injuries from fooling about at the Empire lagoon than all of the activities in Mulu put together!

After getting sunburnt from playing under the noon sun, we headed off to Dynasty for a dim sum lunch. Here's a pic of my son and daughter-in-law (Cambridge terms) at the restaurant.

The afternoon was spent at the Empire country club where each of us had two rounds of bowling.

We wanted to play basketball after bowling but we were told that we weren't allowed to use the court at the country club because we didn't have proper footwear. So we headed off to my house to play bball there instead. Unfortunately Meiyi suffered some injuries from the lack of proper footwear. It seems like activities in Brunei are way more hazardous than in Mulu! talk about safety.. haha

We had dinner with my family, where mum and dad came up with the usual set of dishes for guests. haha Time flew quickly as we continued talking cock after dinner. After getting back to the hotel room, we were entertained by the hilarious Singaporean movie, Ah Long Pte Ltd. Since I've watched the last part of the movie, I fell asleep way before the movie ended.

Day 7

From days of Mulu training, i was up by 7am. The rest were still asleep and I took the chance to go on my comp and do a bit of photoediting. The aircon in the room proved too cold to withstand and hence I moved myself to the balcony where the temperature was way more comfortable. I added some Enya music to suit the relaxing morning but that woke yijin up pretty soon. Since the rest were still asleep, we decided to leave them to their dreams and went to have the complementary breakfast at the Atrium.

By the time everyone got ready and had their rounds of breakfast, it was time to checkout from the Empire. After leaving the Empire, I brought them to the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, in my opinion the prettiest mosque in town.

We also had a walk round the Royal Regalia where the guests got the chance to have a better understanding of our monarchy. No pictures were allowed in the regalia.

We had lunch around 3pm at Gripps Cafe and met up with Shirley who was having a reunion thing there as well. As usual, with the group of us, we can easily pass time by cock talking.

Soon it was time to send my guests off at the airport. We went back to my hosue to get Siewkit's charged mobile and Zhengwei requested a group picture with my dad, so here it is:

That marks the end of Mulu Adventures series and the start of my intensive blogging days!

Day 4 - Backtracking 8.8km, Living through Moria

2008-09-10T01:23:00.013Z

Days of strict sleeping routine at Mulu had me wake up a lot earlier than the others. We agreed to wake by 7.30am, but I was awake slightly after 6. I tiptoed (or not) out of the open-air room and took my time to walk around Camp 5. The sunrise was not as spectacular as yesterday's but I attempted a few snaps anyway. Breathing and taking in the moist, cool morning air was refreshing enough to forget the periodic pain in my thighs. I sat by the edge of the dining platform, observing the changing sky colours, listening to the flow of river water, zoning in and out of consciousness.

Soon enough, everyone was getting out of bed. Breakfast, as before, was settled with Milo, Ipoh White Coffee and cereal bars. After a bit of last minute packing and rearranging, we were ready to leave Camp 5, to head back the 8.8km trail.

Taking a last look at the Camp 5 scenery.

Despite the Climb to the Pinnacles the day before, we sped through the forest trail with extreme speed. It sure felt a lot faster than on the way here. Partly because hey, we've done the Pinnacles, how difficult can this be? and partly due to the fact that we had a clear idea where we were heading to. The first 4km was quickly covered as yijin, chee hui and i took the lead. I think we sped slightly too fast, so much tat siew kit had to put other people in front to prevent us from splitting the group.

As we got towards the end of the 8.8km trail, we decided not to have lunch at the non-existent 'hut' but rather, to have our lunch at the small river island, where we could wait for our longboat to fetch us too. On crossing the mini rapids to get to the island, zhengwei lost his pair of slippers! more slipper casualties. We gave a slight chase but it was washed to areas too deep to reach. We had BaKua, pork floss and tuna with bread for lunch. As usual, when you are in the middle of nowhere, simple food like these always taste more than delicious!

The longboat came and brought us downstream for our final activity of our Mulu Adventures - adventure caving at the Racer Cave! If you lookat the map below, Racer cave is actually pretty close to Wind Cave and Clearwater Cave that we visited two days ago.

Here's a picture of us outside the racer cave entrance - all reasonably clean even though we've just trekked through the 8.8km.Race Cave is not the typical show cave - no board walk, nothing like nicely paved paths. I compared it to climbing sections of the Pinnacles in the dark. Shortly after climbing up a few metres up, we met our first cliff and rope. The guide demonstrated and explained how we can use the rope and the cliff, together with finding good foot holes, to get ourselves to the top of the cliff. A few of us had some trouble and needed a few attempts. This meant slipping and crashing into adjacent walls, but with the constant support and encouragement from the group, we got through the first obstacle successfully.

The cave was extremely dark and a few metres beyond the entrance nothing can be seen if not for the headtorch. The paths were wet and muddy, some sections sharper than others. We were warned not to go off-track and follow the path led by the guide as there are unpredictable dangers all over. During moments of the trail, with darkness surrounding us and only the few headlamps lighting the perilous paths ahead, it certainly felt like the Fellowship going through Moria in the Lord of the Rings! It felt so similar that I was humming tunes from LOTR, namely May It Be, along the way. May it be an evening star, shines down upon you.. may it be when darkness falls, your heart will be true...

After the first rope, most of the group got the hang of rope and rock climbing and we were more confident on our positioning. I later compared the feel of caving to skiing, one that requires confidence building and style/skill to get through. I have a feeling I crave for adrenaline rushes during such moments!

A hilarious quote from Yijin after squeezing his way through in between the rock walls:

I feel like I'm destroying the cave...

Pictures from within the cave - covered in dirt and scratches!

I like this picture best as it clearly depicts how caving feels like. That cliff is in fact the first cliff that we had to get through. I took this picture on our way out and people where climbing down. The silhouette is our guide and I particularly like his stance.
The last of our planned activities ended. Perhaps it was this that I particularly enjoyed caving too. A great sense of achievement that we've made it through so many challenges, yet slightly sad that all the excitement is about to end. We then headed back to the Mulu National Park Headquarters by the longboat.

The game pictured below is Carrom, something I picked up at Mulu. It was pretty addictive for passing time. Perhaps it was the fact that it was the last night but I must admit that Siew Kit's pretty scary when he gets high.

Dinner was settled with the overpriced Mulu HQ cafe. Over our two days at Camp 5, we realised that the price was increased further. A can of softdrink was RM3 and it went up to RM4! After dinner and cleaning ourselves, Aili, Yijin, Siewkit and I settled to play more rounds of Carrom. This continued until the Cafe lady had to close. We asked where we could play into the night, and she pointed to a table at the side of the cafe.

We headed back to the dorm to get more people to play but it started raining quite heavily then. The indoor route connecting the dorm to the cafe was already closed since it was getting late. Hence, to play Carrom, I took out my brand new raincoat (i didn't use a raincoat during the 8.8km nor the climb to the Pinnacles) to brave the rain! Never had I imagine Carrom could get one so high!

The next leg of our journey brings 6 out of 8 of us to Brunei - the Kingdom of Unexpected Treasures!

*Pictures were jointly taken by Zhengwei, Siew Kit and Jin Yang*

Day 3 - The Climb to the Pinnacles!

2008-09-09T09:03:00.008Z

The morning started off earlier than the past two days, with siew kit and I waking up slightly earlier than half past 5am. I grabbed my torchlight and unashamedly shone it at nearly everyone's eyes in our 'room', getting everyone to crawl out of bed. Breakfast was settled with a few nibbles of cereal bars and a cup of milo for each of us. By 6.30am, we were all ready and waiting for the guide to begin the hike up the Pinnacles. The guide came out and once again, highlighted how dangerous our journey would be and told us to be careful at all times. After reminding us that each of us needed at least 3L of water for the entire journey, he proceeded to give a short prayer, blessing our climb ahead.

Without further delay, the group of us set off, with the bunch of Caucasians right behind the front guide and the 8 of us behind them. The first 500m up was indeed torturous as the Caucasians scaled the mountain with extreme speed. It was testing my stamina to its limit and to be honest, if that pace continued, I would have considered turning back by the 900m mark.

With ZhengWei leading the group and constantly encouraging us to move on, we managed to pace ourselves regardless of the group in front. We finally got to the 900m mark, also known as the Mini Pinnacles. The place was nowhere near impressive but the patch of open area allowed us to rest and rehydrate ourselves with water. We were also told to leave a portion of our water at this place for us to get collect on our way down. The picture below shows me with sweat oozing and dripping continuously.

Beyond the Mini Pinnacles, the terrain became increasingly treacherous and our paced slowed. Even so, we were still ahead of schedule and the decrease in pace meant that I could catch my breath easier. The rocks were sharp and the slope was steep. I found it a lot easier to climb by grabbing onto surrounding supports, hence gloves were pretty useful! The thick sole of my shoes also meant that I could step on top of sharp pointy stones without having too much pain on my feet.

We have been warned that at the last 400m, we will meet the first ladder and after 15 ladders up we will reach the summit. This section is supposedly the steepest and hence the most dangerous. There were sections where we needed to haul ourselves with ropes, finding footholes to ease our ascent, balancing ourselves through narrow platforms, squeezing through certain rocky sections and not to forget climbing up near vertical ladders. Even CheeHui, Radio Singapore, was quite turned off at such high altitudes.

After crawling and scaling through the nature-crafted obstacle race, by 11.30am we finally reached the end of our climb, Gunung Api @ 1175m, a wonderful vantage point to watch the Pinnacles just beyond the valley.

When we first arrived the Pinnacles were covered in mist, but we were still in awe as we would make out their shapes. We made ourselves comfortable, resting our legs and recatching our breath. We brought BaKua, imported from Singapore, and bread for our lunch. As much as I love the BBQ pork, it tasted like heaven after such a arduous climb. I think none of us felt any guilt with gobbling down oily BBQ pork then!

As we were having lunch, the mist lifted, revealing the amazing sculptures of Nature to the group of tired trekkers.

Shortly after our lunch and picture taking session, our guide quickly hurried us down, in fear that it will rain later. He kept reminding us not to stop on our way down. I've said this before, but the guides at Mulu National Park are superbly accurate at predicting the weather.

The way down proved way harder than the ascent. The 400m down to the first ladder felt like forever and even when we've reached the first ladder, the hard fact that there is 2000m down isn't comforting at all.

Here's a picture of me at the 'first ladder' (or last for descent) on our way down.

Beyond this point, the next stop point is the 900m Mini Pinnacles, where the rest of our water supplies laid. The 8 of us splitted into two distinct groups, with the Singaporeans (Chee Hui, ZhengWei, Meiyi) at the back with the guide and the 5 of us in front. This was mainly due to the fact that the guide kept telling us not to stop to wait for people due to the impeding rain predicted to pour by the late afternoon.

I took the opportunity to snap a photo of the Brunei forest, that could be seen from such a high altitude. The guide pointed out that the land we could is Brunei. After checking the map of Mulu, I realised that Mulu is actually very near to the Tutong interior border, hence the forest you see is the Tutong forest!

On our way down, we caught up with one of the Caucasian who has lagged behind the fast moving group ahead. He asked for water and we gave him enough supposedly for him to reach the Mini Pinnacles. However, unfortunately we found out later that the Singaporeans and the guide found him unconcious before he could reach the Mini Pinnacles. When asked where his friends were he bitterly replied, 'They used to be friends, they aren't anymore'. This really highlighted the importance of friendship and teamwork, core values that allowed us to get through the journey safely.

As predicted, it decided to rain on the way down and the sharp limestone became sharp and slippery limestones! My legs were shaking at every downward step and I was beginning to lose control of my balancing at times. Rock by rock, step by step, we crawled downhill, taking short breaks at times to rest our burning thighs.

Siew Kit and I, drenched and tired during one of our breaks.

If you read the last post, I was complaining about muddy roads during our 8.8km trek to Camp 5. Ironically, when we saw muddy roads towards the last 200-300m of our descent, we were more than happy to barge through them with little consideration in mind. We have had enough of crawling through limestones!

We finally got back to Camp 5 and enjoyed a cool swim in the river until i found a leach attached to my back. Chee Hui had the salt and he wasn't back yet, but fortunately William had a lime in his pocket and swiftly relieved me from the leach.

Picture of us at the end of the climb - happy and relieved that we made it through such a feat!

By evening I could barely walk with the constant ache in my thighs. Similar to the night before, we had mee goreng for dinner with a few canned food. Not surprisingly, we gobbled most of the food down. After dinner and washing up, we played a few rounds of cards (bluff) and prepared sufficient water for the journey back the 8.8km trail the following morning.

With our overexerted thighs and bodies, we went to bed for our last night at camp 5, wondering how well we would manage to walk back the 8.8km and attempt adventure caving at the Racer Cave after such an extreme climb...

*Pictures were jointly taken by Zhengwei, Siew Kit and Jin Yang*

Day 2 - 8.8km to Camp 5, Leeches!

2008-09-08T23:10:00.008Z

After our bats and guano encounter, the second day started off pretty relaxing. Our bags were heavy but we were relieved of such burden as we left our bags on the longboat. No idea did we have of what laid ahead in the afternoon. We were warned that we might need to get out of the boat if the water level is too low, but no such thing in the morning.

With the longboat, we were brought to the Wind Cave and Clearwater Caves. These were show caves, meaning the guide just brought us around the caves on nicely laid-out paths or platforms. Nothing very spectacular compared to our adventure in the Deer Cave. I also found the Lang Cave a lot more interesting.

The picture below is portion of the cave roof that collapsed aeons ago, revealing a view of the sky from below.

Another lovely sight outside the caves was a congregation of large and pretty butterflies. These are known as Raja Brookes. For those who are familiar with Brunei-Sarawak history, this name shouldn't sound too unfamiliar. It was pretty hard to take a good pic of these butterflies since i obviously couldn't get too close and they kept moving around too.
The tours around the caves ended around noon and we were hurried back onto the boat as the guide warned us about impeding afternoon showers. One thing i observed was that the guides at Mulu are superbly skilled at weather forecasting.

As we headed further upstream, we finally met sections where we had to get out of the boat to lighten it and help push the boat across shallow regions of the river. Yijin and SiewKit were more than enthusiastic to get on to the water and would be the first to jump at any opportunity to get out. This was until the boatman told us not to jump out without his instructions. Due to the fast flowing water, yijin suffered a 'slipper casualty' as one of his slippers was washed away by the fast undercurrent during one of the boat-pushing moments!

The longboat approached another shallow area and we were getting ready to get off the boat to push it through. To our surprise, the boatman said this was it. This was the start of our 8.8km trek to Camp 5. He led us to a small opening of the forest and told us to keep walking straight. We were contemplating having our packed lunch on an island of the river, but the guide recommended moving another 800m where we will see a 'hut' to have lunch. Thinking that 800m isn't too far, we didn't even bother changing into shoes, grabbed our rucksacks and moved on.

800m proved further than we expected. With an extra burden of at least 10kg, muddy and slippery surfaces, the lack of proper footwear (still on slippers) as well as attacks from leaches, we inched our way through the unfamiliar forest path. When we finally hit the 800m mark, all we found was a wooden table. No hut, nothing else. We made do with what we had and had lunch there. Most of us took the opportunity to change into shoes but I decided to just wear socks and sandals since my shoes were still wet from the previous day. I wanted to reduce the amount of wet soggy feeling in my shoes.

Picture shows the group of us at the 'hut' - we were happier after lunch.

So 8 more kilometres to go and we walked on km by km, stopping every 1.5-2km for a short water break and to relieve the sores on the our backs. There were also emergency stops when anyone gets bitten by a leach. During such moments, the group would race to see who could come with salt, lime or insect repellent first!

Around halfway through the 8km, we came across a river and decided to take a longer rest there. The river banks were open and sunny so it was good to drop our bags and breathe in some less moist air. We did a bit of stone throwing game and moved on with our journey.

The remaining kilometres didn't feel any shorter as the terrain and weather decided to play some games upon us. It decided to pour quite heavily. The Singaporeans brought out their Gortex raincoat to shield themselves. I had a raincoat in my bag but since i was already drenched in sweat, i don't see much difference with getting wet in the rain.

The terrain became slightly more dangerous, with more hilly regions. Trust me, with a 10kg rucksack on your back, anything uphill is seriously demoralising.

Nevertheless, we constantly reminded each other to take safety first, regardless of the pace of our travel. Our random chats along the way also relieved a lot of the burden from our minds. Chee Hui, who gained the nickname of Radio Singapore, constantly filled us in with interesting news and facts and is always on high demand in both the front and the back of our line-up formation.

We reached camp 5 eventually in the late afternoon - wet, sore, dirty and tired, yet extremely happy that each and everyone one of us got through safely. We saw that some of the Caucasians that we met earlier during the Cave tours were already resting there. I dropped my bag at the quarter and went over the the riverside to rest my burning feet in the cool refreshing water.

The view from Camp 5 is pretty amazing!

After showering and cooking our Maggi Mee for dinner, we had a briefing by our guide for our activity the next day. He told us that climbing up the Pinnacles is harder than climbing Mount Kinabalu, Sabah due to the dangerous terrain. The climb is 1200m in height and 2400m in length. The rocks are sharp and the path is steep. Our group the pinnacles for the following morning consists of 5 Caucasians (of varying origins) and the 8 of us. We were told that after the 900m mark, if anyone decides that they can't make it to the top the whole group will have to turn back.

From then on, the main concern was whether we would be of any inconvenience to the group. Nevertheless, SiewKit with his pep talk had us convinced that it's not within our stamina nor physical strength, but our mental will to move on that would get us to the summit. With that, we had an early night, partly due to the fatigue from the long and tiring trek but more importantly, each of us know that we would be facing a much more strenuous challenge the following morning - The Climb to the Pinnacles!

Day 1 - Of Mulu and Bat Droppings

2008-09-08T05:53:00.017Z

From Miri, the 8 of us flew to Mulu on a Fokker 50. It wasn't as scary as Zhengwei's description of a military fokker. Nevertheless, it was quite an experience. The flight took less than 25 minutes, the plane literally just went up and then down.The Mulu airport was more of a gate than an airport. No security checks, no conveyor belts. After grabbing our respective rugsacks, we took a RM5 bus trip to the Mulu HQ, which was less than 5 minutes drive away.

After paying up and dropping our rugsacks in the HQ dorm, there wasn't much time to bum around. We had a few bites of snacks for lunch and off we went for a 2-3km board walk, enjoying the omnipresence of nature. The guide pointed out rather interesting things along the way, including stick insects, leaf bugs, lantern bugs, different types of trees etc etc.

The picture below shows milipedes mating. haha

The end of the walk was the entrance to two show caves, the Deer Cave and Lang Cave. The Deer cave is the largest cave passage in the world. Its name originated from previous findings that deers frequented the cave for their supply of sodium chloride. From watching David Attenborough's programs on BBC iplayer, this phenomena wasn't too suprising as there was a documentary where elephants carved through caves to obtain the important mineral to them. Anyway, after humans found the cave, deers shy away from this place hence no deers anymore.

The guide pointed out a landmark of the cave - the Abraham Lincoln profile.

Most part of the cave was boardwalk, with nicely paved paths. But towards the 'end' of the path, the guide decided that we would do something more adventurous and brought us off the trail. We had to climb through pretty daunting rocky terrain with minimal light around us. There were sections where we had to grab on the the surrounding rocks to stabilise ourselves. It was there where we realised that we had no choice but to cling on to whatever that was around us - guano a.k.a bat droppings. The cave was filled with milo-coloured guano! everywhere.

There was also a stream running through the cave and while many of us got through the first time with minimal damage, i miss my step and got my pair of shoes soaked! Other highlights include our meeting with a lost monitor lizard in a pretty narrow part of the cave. The guide actually pulled its tail and flung it away.

Anyway, we continue climbing through more guano and slippery rocks towards the exit of the cave - the Garden of Eden. This patch of forest was formed from the collapse of the cave roof thousands of years ago. Picture shows the view from within the Deer Cave.

Taking a break at the Garden of Eden. We couldn't continue beyond this point because it was getting late. So we headed back down the cave to take a swim at the stream.

Picture of us enjoying the nice cool water. It great to swim off the dirt, guano, sweat and heat! The small area of 'rapids' was really spa-like.

On our way back, the guide pointed a few interesting cave formation, including the showerhead shown below. There were two such features in the cave, conveniently names Eve's shower and Adam's shower. Yijin literally had a good shower below one of these. The way back out the cave felt a lot shorted since we were less sensitive to water and guano already by then.

Exciting the Deer Cave, the guide brought us to the Lang Cave, one of the pretties cave in Mulu. It's a small cave and we covered it pretty quickly - all board walk, nothing too adventurous, but very pretty indeed.
After the caves, we settled at the bat observatory area near the entrance of the two caves to wait for the bats to come out. They normally come out from 4-6pm. Since it was raining their exit was pretty late, around 5-ish and people gathered around watching in awe. The caves are home to 3-4 million bats and they come out at night for their nightly hunt. They travel as far as Miri (100km away) to hunt for insects. The bats normally circle around the cave entrance gathering themselves. There are cameras in different locations of the caves to show the bat activities. The bats flew out in small clouds of swirling black bats, which got longer and longer as the sun began to set.

After cleaning ourselves, we helped ourselves to the blatantly overpriced dinner, played jenga for a while and got back to the dorm to pack for the next chapter of our Mulu Adventures, the 9km trek to Camp 5.

Check back later for more updates!

*Pictures were jointly taken by Zhengwei, Siew Kit and Jin Yang*

Day 0 - Journey to Miri

2008-09-08T02:10:00.010Z

After months of planning, anticipating and preparation, the first leg of the Mulu adventure started with me picking up the Singaporeans at the Brunei Airport. Chee Hui, Zheng Wei and Meiyi dropped some of their clothes at my place for their later visit to Brunei before heading off to Miri.

The 2-3 hours drive to Miri was spent catching with one another, random talks and comments on how much forest Brunei has. There was also the issue of transporting bread and water to Mulu for our stay at Camp 5 (A camp in the middle of nowhere so we were meant to prepare our own food for two days). We later decided that it's too troublesome to lug water up the plane to Mulu and decided to buy/boil water there. After crossing the Brunei-Miri border, we stopped by e-Mart, a supermarket to buy bread that could last for 4 extra days and some other snacks for the journey later. Since it was the Malaysian National Day and onset of Ramadhan, we witnessed towers of egg-trays and sacks of garlics being brought to the cashiers.

After dumping our stuff at William's place, his family brought us to Canadian Hill in Miri where we overlooked the Miri town as well as witnessed a spectacular sunset. It was also there where the first well in Miri was drilled. I had an interesting chat with William's dad who is a Shell reservoir engineer about why they decided to drill a well so high up.

This picture was smart as we used the reflective glass on the building to capture the great sunset!

Sunset from the Canadian Hill, overlooking Miri and few offshore oil platforms.

We had a great dinner with William's family at a seafood place. I have to say that I was quite touched with the prayer given by William's dad, praying to God to ensure us a safe flight to Mulu so that we can appreaciate His creations, provide us with good guides and a safe journey throughout the entire adventure.

The night was spent repacking our food, making sure we have enough food with minimal weight to carry. It was great hospitality from William's family that made sure we were all comfortable.

Siew Kit, Chee Hui, Yijin, Zhengwei and I had a room to ourselves while aili and meiyi had another. The joke of the night worth remembering is that the aircon was too cold for everyone but no one voiced an opinion because we thought the rest wanted the aircon. Even the two girls din ask each other whether they could switch off their aircon. We were all freezing by sunrise! This is what happens when you're too accomodating with one another. hahaha!

Of Dreams and Opportunities

2008-08-26T08:18:00.009Z

During the BSP away day, there was an ice breaking session where we had to ask 'What is your ambition?'. I quickly realised that the question was partly redundant and hugely ironic. Redundant because by then, every single scholar would already know what course he will be taking as well as his career for the next decade. I found it ironic through the answers I got after I gave the question a slight twist, modifying it to 'What was your ambition before Shell offered you the scholarship?'. Out of the 5 of us on my table, 3 gave a different answer, i.e. they wanted to do something else before but taking up the BSP scholarship with the prescribed course.

I've discussed my thoughts with a few people since then and we've come to very interesting viewpoints. It seems like the phenomena isnt specifically for Brunei, but region-wide too. A scholarship as such more or less means a care-free university life and a guaranteed job in the future, in short - security.

The asian culture seems to promote the habit of being safe, hence the availability of a well-laid path would naturally appear attractive. While it is true that whatever paths we take is highly dependent on the opportunities presented to us, the order at which these opportunities reveal themselves is even more crucial. Furthermore, offers might not always suit your dreams and more often than not, pressures from the social environment would require us to make decisions based on others judgements. It is not suprisingly that people are willing to reframe their minds and take up a course (and/or career) that they aren't initially interested for the sake of security. An enlightening chat with a blog reader further asserts the fact that many ppl here are ready to join 'the pool of destinities'. Coincidentally, someone I talked to who wanted to be a pilot took up an engineering course after being offered the scholarship because he/she thought it was her 'fate'.

Now, provided you weren't initially into the course prescribed, the more daunting question is whether you dare to reject such opportunities when they arise at such a time? Such a decision would normally require you to take up the financially lesser option while waiting for the next opportunity to arise. A friend likened the situation to jumping off a cliff to pursue your dreams. I argued that people would want to know that they will actually survive the fall before they decide to take the plunge. Many people don't have the privilege to wait for the second chance. At the end of the day, settling for security is always 'logically' more justifiable.

There're no right or wrong answers but I'm writing this as an interesting observation. No one says you won't be successful if you take one option or another. The other problem with people just 'following the system' is that many people aren't clarifying the conditions and privileges offered by each scholarship awardgin body, expecting that things will straighten out when it comes. Many matters here are hearsay or hand-wavy. Having said that, a quick interview or meet up with an accountable personnel from each awarding body would normally give you quick and clearcut answers. Then again, just who would question so-called sensitive issues if they don't need to. Would you ask your scholarship awarding body what are the consequences if you want to break you bond? Unless you are seriously into breaking the bond, you would think twice to prevent 'offending people'. But information as such should be known and made clear to every single person who signs their contract.

In a previous post, I wrote about how the Singapore News Straits Times gave out a special edition on available scholarships. Now I see the serious need for clarification and transparency. Anyone up for doing a social project for Brunei? ;-)

Cousin Gathering

2008-08-22T13:21:00.007Z

The last time we counted, they were 42 of us - meaning I have 3 sisters n 38 cousins on my dad's side. and yup tat's a lot. There's also a huge age gap between the old and the young. Anyway, nini's great initiative to organise a cousin's gathering is applaudable. We had the gathering at her place last sunday.

A bouncer, with a slide equipped. We sprayed water on the slide so that it would be easier for the kids (my nieces and nephews) to slide down.

Don't you think this is an interesting shot? haha
Got the opportunity to freeze water. Can u see the flaw in this picture?

[View the complete gallery]

I have lost count of the number of nieces and nephews i have... haha

Shell Scholars Away Day 2008

2008-08-19T12:25:00.012Z

The Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) Scholars Away is an annual event where all the BSP scholars come together and enjoy a fun-filled, team-bonding session. As mentioned in the BSP Scholars-Behind the Scene post, I was looking forward to this day mainly for photographic interests. However, it turned out that I am more than grateful that Izzul decided that I have to be in all activities. It was great fun!

As all Shell events, the day started with Charlene, our HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) officer for the event, giving out safety details and reminding us to drink plenty of water throughout the day. As obedient as I am, I found that I frequented the washroom towards the afternoon.

Having said that I wasn't officially in the 'photography team' doesnt mean that I can't take photos but the main events were left to the capable photographers of the organising committee, Yati and Amalia.

After the ice-breaking session, the party moved to the beach, with handball as the highlight of the morning. As you can see, I had some trouble setting the exposure of the shot right in bright sunlight, but I like the fact that Ayub was caught in mid-air. =) Oh yes, did i mention my team won the handball game? haha

Lots and lots of posing around the beach area. and people began to get a bit high. haha

As Shell scholars, we should be familiar with platforms and thus one of the team building activities was to build the tallest platform to hold a 1.5L bottle of water with satay sticks. My team had a pre-university mechanical engineer-to-be but that was about it. It was useful that she was a scout and could tie the sticks together. However due to time constraints, half my team decided to poke sticks through pillars and the other half was still busy tying strings, resulting in a comical 'hybrid' platform. The last minute result was a genius idea by zul to put supporting sticks under the strained strings for additional loading support. We did win the contest, tied with another team with presented a more organised platform, but hey we used the least material. That's wat engineering is about! =D

Nevertheless, Chuo Rong decided to test the platform to failure and it quickly yielded after a mere additional 500ml of water. Here's the aftermath!

Dinner was themed 'The 70s' and you can already start imagining what people came up with. While post-processing the pics I decided to follow the theme and added a sepia tone to it. I think it adds very well to the taste. I also experimented with my home-made diffuser which I think did a pretty good job from the results of the pics.

[View the complete Gallery]
*Please email me if you want any of the full resolution pics*

Revisiting Copenhagen

2008-08-13T09:37:00.009Z

I took out my pendrive last night to hand the Oxbridge Roadshow powerpoint to the Higher Education Unit @MD and found a photo of my trip to Copenhagen, Denmark during summer 2007. I found a picture of the group of us in the Hans Christian Anderson museum. For your information, Hans Christian Anderson is the Danish author who wrote fairy tales like The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, The Ugly Duckling, etc.

This picture was taken inside the museum under very low lighting. I thought the ambient light was excellent and the backdrop of old Copenhagen was wonderful, so we posed for a timed photo without flash. =P It was taken using my old Canon Ixus 800IS. The picture came out satisfactory, I always wondered how I could reduce the incredibly high noise level (ISO 800 on a point-and-shoot). If you are able to click on the pic, u might be able to appreciate the amount of noise better.

With new resources at hand and revived interest, I decided to have another go. Here's the end-product.

Enlarging the photo to a 100% can reveal some artifacts of post-processing but note that I was working on an already post-processed low resolution photo found in the pendrive. I can't be bothered to go through my archives of photos to find the original shot - working on impulse is way more exciting.

There are a few remainig grains but I think it adds to the taste of the photo quite well and the border is something I learnt through blog-hopping in the office. ;-) So wat do you think?

BSP Scholars - Behind the Scene

2008-08-12T12:33:00.008Z

I am feeling super inspired today because I have more or less finished my report for my summer internship. In fact, I have concluded the report and I'm left with the bibliography - which can be easily done since I have footnoted all the references I used.

As a result I have decided to further process a few pictures I've taken over my brief stay at F19. F19 Seria is the accomodation that BSP provides its scholars during our summer attachment program. Due to a varying reasons, I have yet to stay there for more than a week continuously. The first four weeks were filled with programs for HM Birthday and after that I caught a cough, which meant sleeping in air-con isn't the most comfortable.

The amout of fun (and nonsense) happening at f19 far surpasses what you see here, but those would remain within the knowledge of BSP scholars!

Anyone who has read Izzy's blog lately would come to know the initial DOTA (Defence of The Ancients) craze - a multiplayer Warcraft III game. When you have guys, large number of laptops and the lack of internet, multiplayer LAN games would automagically spring to mind. It also resulted in sleepy students in the office the following mornings. =P

Izzy on the guitar hero during one of the birthday celebrations.

The girls posing during Najib's birthday huge makan. I think this shot is quite cool. The fact that people are looking at different places makes it hard to focus on a particular point (pair of eyes for me).
Finally a group photo - taken by Emma. I have no idea but apparently that's 'Najib's pose'. haha

The BSP Scholarship Away Day will be held this coming Monday and hopefully I'll be able to get some good shots. What I'm afraid of is the lack of a lenshood and bright sunlight during noon time. Ah well, we'll see. Another Shell scholar (Amal, who's a more experienced photog) and I have sort of agreed to produce a set of candid shots during the away day!

The explanation

2008-08-10T05:00:00.006Z

So here's the Press Release given by the Brunei Darussalam National Olympic Council (given to me by Kamilin) on Brunei's Debacle at the Beijing Olympics - very well written I must say.

Shahbandar - Monkey Business

2008-08-10T02:59:00.007Z

I am currently on my recent scheme to 'recover-from-the-cough' and 'get-fit-enough-for-mulu' training. Since my stamina hit rock bottom after the flu (normally happens), I decided that I need to do something about it. I'm joining a group of Cambridge friends to Mulu National Park, attempting to climb the pinnacles. According to Chee Hui, the pinnacles are quite challenging and require a 'fit upper body'. I have no idea what that means, but I've been gradually trying to increase the amount of exercise I do.

So far I've been playing tennis with dad and sister quite often, bball at home, jogging around Tasek Lama area and just this morning, a visit back to Bukit Shahbandar.

I decided to bring the camera along, stuffed it in my backpack (with the lowepro bag). I thought it would serve as a good preview to whether I can climb mountains (hills rather) with the extra few kilograms on my back.

While waiting for Jances to arrive, Izzy and I were being entertained by this group of monkeys. The picture below is the horde of monkeys enjoying themselves on top of a Mercedes! In fact, there were two Mercedes parkes next to one another and the monkeys were hopping from one to another. Really painful sight! Lesson learnt - Don't bring your Mercedes to Shahbandar and park it next to the trees!

Bringing the camera has its advantages of course, when you get photo opportunity like these.

This dude was shaking the lamppost. And to add to the drama, the lamppost is just in front of the Mercedes. Imagine if it fell. *shudders*

Monkeys aside, the company was great. The initial climb made me seriously consider not bringing my camera to Mulu. I think the verdict for whether the EOS 450D goes for a holiday depends on how fit I am by the end of the month.

Here's a picture of my trekking partners - Izzy and Jances.

Just for the context, Izzy's from Imperial and Jances is in Oxford. During the random talks during the climb, an inspiration sparked. BOSSICUBS! A sleak combination of BOSS (Brunei Oxford Student Society), iCUBS (Imperial College Union Brunei Society) and CUBS (Cambridge University Brunei Society). Now we might have enough people to form a sports team!

Brunei's Debacle at the Olympics

2008-08-08T14:28:00.016Z

Before I go into the details, I would just like to say that the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was awesome! It was a spectacular, mind boggling and mouth gaping performance. From the fireworks footprints, to the scrolls, the children, the 2008 kungfu performance. It really lived up to China's promise of '世界给我十六天，我还世界五千年' (The world gives me sixteen days, I repay the world with 5000 years (of history and culture))!! The found the scroll placed at the centre of the stage the most versatile prop of all. It was really a theatrical experience from my sitting room!

I was in for a shock when i heard Brunei Darussalam's name mentioned by the commentator. I wasn't paying attention at the moment but I soon realised what happenned after friends from overseas started flaming me on msn one after another. Dudes, you ppl really don give chance la~!

[I thought this pic suits this post better!]

So, we forgot to register in time for the Olympic march-through, hence eliminated from the marchthrough. Great. The fact that His Majesty's there doesn't really make things easy for him. Considering the fact that I'm already having trouble explaining myself to my friends, I really pity HM if he has to defend the nation on a global platform.

**update**

A quick google on the issues gave the following reports:

BEIJING (Reuters) - The IOC excluded Brunei from
participating in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games
on Friday because its national Olympic committee
failed to register the country's two athletes by
the required deadline.

"It is a great shame and very sad for the athletes
who lose out because of the decision by their
team not to register them," IOC spokeswoman
Emmanuelle Moreau said in a statement. "The IOC
tried up until the last minute, midday Friday, to
have them register, but to no avail."

The decision meant only 204 countries would take
part in the Games' opening ceremony parade.

BBC SPORT - Brunei excluded from 2008 Games

The International Olympic Committee has excluded Brunei from
the Beijing Games after the South East Asian country failed to
register any of its athletes. Brunei had until midnight ahead of
Friday's ceremony, which started at 1245 BST, but missed
the deadline.

"It is a great shame and very sad for the athletes
who lose out," an IOC spokeswoman said. Brunei's absence
means that only 204 countries will compete at the Olympics,
which officially started on Friday.

The IOC's Emmanuelle Moreau said in a statement: "The
IOC tried up until the last minute to have them register,
but to no avail." The Brunei athletes involved are 15-year-old
swimmer Maria Grace Koh and shot putter Mohammed Yazid
Yatimi Yusof.

Someone should really be accountable for this. At least a formal explanation (or apology) addressed to the entire nation to account for what happenned. I believe the nation has the right to know what caused such international embarrassment! I am expecting a very interesting opinions page on Borneo Bulletin.

Playing with Fire

2008-08-07T14:05:00.007Z

Tonight is the 7th day of the 7th month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. Normally my family would have a small ceremony to commemorate what is supposedly known as the Chinese Valentine Day, literally known as the 'Night of Sevens'. This came from a old chinese folklore.

But anyway, that's not the point. The point is my hands were itchy and my camera has been unused for a while. So i brought out the 450D and started shooting anything.

The normal set up

Oxbridge Roadshow 2008

2008-08-07T11:28:00.005Z

I realised I didn't take any photos during matriculation. Sad! So this is my feeble attempt to photograph my matriculation photo for the Higher Education Unit @ Maktab Duli for the Oxbridge Roadshow held yesterday.

Overall, I think it went okay. Only okay. To be honest, I think we did a better job last year due to the smaller, more compact venue. Since it was held at the auditorium this year, aiming to reach out to a wider audience, it became a lot less personal. I loved it when we invited people over to Cambridge - I thought those were the best.

I think the problem with collaborating with schools is that it seems like it is inappropriate to make things 'informal'. There must be a mic, there are protocols to be followed etc etc. I'm sure there's a reason for all this, but it's hard to see the advantages from my perspective.

However, we did get the message across hopefully, just that there wasn't the extra oomph in it any more. The impressive video made by the Higher Education Unit might have been the highlight of it but the messy logistics with late comers kinda put off the feel somehow. Perhaps that's why we need new blood! Evidently, I thought Hanif's and Syazana's speeches were clear, fresh and enlightening. =)

Scholarship hearsay

2008-08-07T02:50:00.005Z

I've previously ranted on the Brunei scholarship scenario in a previous post. While the government did give away a large amount of scholarship last year, it seems like the scene has changed this summer.

Apparently, according to a few education personnels i talked to yesterday at the Oxbridge roadshow held at Maktab Duli, the Ministry of Education is now a lot more selective on the students that they want to send overseas. There is now a list of subjects that they have chosen for overseas scholars (and yes, Chemical Engineering is not in that list!). I suppose they are trying to build UBD as a more reputable institute, but doing this exclusively by subject doesn't sound good to me.

So I did ask my questions and got a few answers:

'What is the difference between the DANA scholarship and the MOE scholarship?'

Apparantly, the DANA scholars need to have an aggregate of 7 points in their 'O' levels. That's 3 A1s and 2 A2s. They will then be sent to the UK to do their 'A' levels, but are required to obtain 3As for their 'A' levels there. Failing to do so would require them to reapply for an MOE scholarship. However, securing the good results, they are free to go on to University on a bond-free scholarship. Sounds like a really good deal to me.

However, I still don't a clear idea of the selection of DANA scholars and MOE scholars if they choose to apply after their 'A' levels. Someone out there educate me on this please.

This might be the first 'bond-free' scholarhip available here. In other words they are not guaranteed a job after they graduate. However, since the chosen scholars are meant to be high achievers, I think the idea is for them to work elsewhere in the world.

This is the brain drain-brain gain game. Losing the talents to work elsewhere, wait for them to gain the experience and knowledge and hopefully return back home when they are accomplished enough, thus helping the country improve. I think the hardest part is to ensure that they still see enough potential in Brunei for them to return home once they are established overseas. The other challenge is when the scholars don't take the opportunity to explore and simply return home waiting for a job.

'What if a student wants to study Chemical Engineering and has an offer from a reputable institute such as Imperial College, London or Cambridge Unversity?

Apparently, if you have good results, there is still space for negotiation. Of course this means extra work, more paperwork and connections in some cases. However, it seems like if it's the top 5 universities, they might still consider sending you overseas. The person i talked to gave me a case of a 4 A student who wanted to do Electrical Engineering in the UK who got his way in the end. [Electrical Engineering students are sent to UBD - this is even before Chem Eng]

The scene back home has really changed and there seem to be more frequent complaints on the Borneo Bulletin opinions page on unsuccessful scholarship application this year. Let's hope things straighten out soon.

Insect

2008-08-05T03:06:00.005Z

Shot with the kits lens @ Tasek Lama during my daily morning walkabout.

Alyssa's Birthday

2008-08-03T09:36:00.008Z

Since I still have a slight cough, I didn't intend to cover the whole event. In fact, I told Ping Ping that I won't be able to make it and asked whether Bernard would be interested in taking up the job.

After having my porridge for lunch (sick eat porridge la!), i decided to pop by Sheraton Utama for the last 30 minutes of the party. It was well worth it as i realised kids are so interesting to shoot! Alyssa especially cos she's just adorable.

Alyssa the Photog

From Alyssa Birthday

Alyssa the birthday girl

Nissan Teana - Modern Luxury Living

2008-08-02T14:23:00.006Z

The lack of photos lately is due to the fact that I'm currently recovering from a very bad cough. While it has subsided tremendously over the past two days, the flu (sore throat etc) has been ongoing ever since two weeks ago. Not the best condition to be in.

When my aunt invited us to the launch of the Nissan Teana at Boustead, I was quite suprised that the launch was held at night. After playing tennis with the parents, dad n I headed over to have a look. It all came clear why the event was held at night. It was to fit the theme of the Nissan Teana - 'modern luxury lifestyle'. Most of the staff were dressed very formally for the same reason too!

I didn't take many pics but these were among the few better ones..

In mr brown's tone, fierce o not?!

There was a band in the middle of the show room, also to fit the luxurious theme.

Kids trying out their future car? :P

Checking out the car from all directions..